#like bitch you so fucking clearly do have a problem you specifically brought this up out of the blue and bitched about it

[hecksupremechips]

My mother was genuinely pissed off tonight about the concept of two guys showing affection towards each other in any capacity and was ranting about it for like 20 minutes. And she still claims she’s not homophobic 😞

[tallyica]

pls anything with load era james IM BEGGING YOU

hihi!!

thanks for the request! please be specific next time! I don't know what you want, so please give me at least a genre or scenario!!

anyways, its an angst fic bc I didn't know what else to do

warnings: drinking, swearing, one line that sounds sucicidal but isn't, possible break up, arguing, angst in general

word count: 2,440

LOSING YOU (1996)

I sat in the cold, empty hotel, sitting on the bed and just staring at the wall, trying to process everything that's been going on.

The last few months in James and I’s relationship have been pure hell. Nothing was going right with us, it felt like there was no more caring, passion, or even love. 

These months James has been on tour, and I decided to join him for a few of the dates, tired of spending months alone in our apartment, the quietness and deadness of it all seemed odd. I always enjoyed James’ presence, and I had gone out on tour with him before, but this time was, way, way different. Normally, he comes back somewhat drunk, not fully wasted since I was there, but he was tipsy. Now, he would come up at 3 am, drunk off his ass, and be all weird to me. He’d ignore me completely unless he had needs he wanted me to fulfill.

But lately, for at least the last 15 shows or so, he would just come in drunk, push my hands away from him, and wouldn't let me cuddle up with him, which was very not like him, as he was one who valued personal time, but perhaps his priorities have changed.

I sighed, hearing the doorknob of the hotel rattle, it was locked, and I slowly trudged towards the door, a small hope begging that James was sober, and just wanted to love me. I cracked the door open, seeing James swaying slightly as I opened the door fully to let him in, and oh how he reeked of beer. I moved so he could get in, and he stumbled in, not even greeting me.

“Hi,” I said coldly with a scoff, shutting the door. I watched as he shuffled to the bed, falling on it with a groan.

“Why are you always.. Such a bitch..?” He slurred out, and I felt my heart drop, my stomach twisted into a knot. We had argued plenty of times, name called even, but he never called me a bitch. 

“What the fuck did you just say to me?” I said, more of a statement than a question, my voice shaking slightly. He was drunk, he must not meant it.

“Youre.. You're a bitch..” He slurred out at me again, which stung again. We had been together for almost 6 years, and he had never lashed out at me, not like this.

I scoffed, my hurt and sadness only coming out as anger, “What is your problem? You haven't wanted to be around me at all, for weeks. You're always drunk, and you never hug me, kiss me, talk to me, hold me, anything that we used to do.” I stated coldly at him, though I doubted the words really registered in his mind.

James just groaned, “God, all you do is whine and complain.. Just shut up for once..” He grumbled out, and it hurt me, bad.

I shook my head, grabbing my coat and wallet before walking towards the hotel room door, “I’ll talk to you once you're sober.” I called out into the room, though I doubt he understood me as I slammed the door, storming out of the hotel and walking out into the street, the cold air nipping my skin harshly.

My outfit wasn't very warm, just my sleep shorts and one of James’ old band shirts, along with my jacket. I hated the shirt I was wearing, he was the last thing I wanted to be reminded of, though It brought me some slight comfort, smelling him on it and feeling that he was still with me somewhat, even if not truly or emotionally.

I walked for about twenty minutes until I found another hotel, booking a room for the night as I felt the cold air melt off of me, the warm hotel air swaddling me in a way. I sighed, slowly approaching the front desk, the receptionist glancing up at me from her computer screen.

She was quick to take in my rushed state, clearly here on a whim. “How can I help you?” She said, her voice tired. It was so late, I didn't blame her. I read the name on her nametag, Laurice. A name I hadn't ever heard before.

“Can I get a room, just for the night please?” I said, my voice shaking a bit, my mind still hazed from the argument.

Laurice nodded, typing on her keyboard for a few moments before glancing back up at me. “Alright, we can get you in room 247 on floor 3 for $67.48. Will that be cash or card?” 

I sighed, grabbing my wallet out of my pocket, “Uhm, cash,” I mumbled, digging out a fifty-dollar bill and a twenty.

Laurcie grabbed my money, giving me my change as she handed me my hotel key, “Enjoy your stay, you check out at two pm tomorrow.” She informed me briefly before sitting back down behind the desk, and I took the key, walking away.

I walked slowly into the elevator, the empty, compact steel room making me feel horridly uncomfortable. The silence, the only noise was the rutting hum of the elevator moving up towards floor three, until the sudden jolt and stop, the elevator dining and opening.

I quickly walked out, wandering around the vacant halls until I found my room, unlocking the door with my key, stepping in and shutting it, and locking it behind me. Standing there for a moment, the events of the night replaying in my mind, everything finally hitting me, hard. I stumbled towards the bed, beginning to sob. All my emotions and hurt finally spilled over from the last weeks, of being ignored, pushed away, insulted, and yelled at. All I needed was someone to hold me, love me, and comfort me. This was a life I didn't want to live. Maybe even after all of these years with James, the ‘honeymoon phase’ has ended. Maybe he was right, that I couldn't handle dating a rockstar like him.

How could things fall apart in such an instant? One day we were perfect, happy as can be, discussing our future, even marriage or children. I clutched my stomach, feeling nauseous at all of these emotions. I brought the large shirt up to my nostrils, inhaling his familiar scent.

I hadn't been alone to process a breakdown like this in years, James wasn't here to hold me, tell me it would all be alright and that he loved me, but now I questioned if any of that was true. Everything had fallen apart around me, I was alone, in a different place from where we lived, sobbing in a hotel room.

Eventually, I cried myself to sleep, the half-empty bed making me feel so odd, so unnatural. Sleeping without him holding me as I curl up to him is so wrong. I have grown so dependent on him, yet he seems like he could use less of me.

IN THE MORNING

I woke up groggily, my body instinctively searching for his warmth, though finding none. Last night memories flooded back to me. Now realisation hit me. I looked at the clock, the red pixels gleaming 1:34 PM. I had slept in so late, and by now James was either sober and hungover, or drunk off his ass again. Maybe he skipped town and left with the band to go to their next gig early.

They were done with the shows in this city, and the private plane would be leaving tomorrow at noon. My list of choices was small, either not leave the city, fly home, show up to the private plane unannounced, or make amends.

This shouldn't be so hard for me to get over, it was just a drunken spat, but he has been neglectful towards me for weeks. Was there anyone else I could find to even possibly replace him?

The man who had held me during so many nights, made me smile, made m laugh, and made me feel like the most important and loved person in the world, now made me feel like a piece of shit he stepped in, it was like all we had has vanished.

He would push me aside when I tried to hug him, wipe my kiss stains from his cheek, shrug off my questions, and keep me distant. I would try to cuddle up to him in bed, and he would just move further away from me until he was against the wall, then he would tell me to “give him some space”.

If anything, I have to settle down to what we have become with him. I had to check out if this hotel was in.. Fuck, twenty minutes. I didn't have much or anything to grab, but I would have nowhere else to go except for the hotel James was at. I had to speak to him, either to fix things or end them.

I sighed, quickly fixing the bed and grabbing my wallet, checking out of the hotel and trying to remember the way back to where James and the rest of the band were staying. I wasn't sure which street I walked up or down, where I turned left or right. This would be very, very difficult.

After wandering around for thirty minutes, I finally reached the hotel. I stood in front of the door for what felt like an hour, but I quickly walked in, though was surprised to see James’ bandmate, Kirk, in the lobby of the hotel, talking with a man who I didn't recognize, though I assumed he was a fan. I slowly approached him, tapping him on the shoulder and he quickly turned his head back, recognizing me.

“Hey, do you know-” My words were mumbled and hushed, though that didn't matter as Kirk quickly interrupted me.

“Hey! Where the hell have you been? We were all gonna go to breakfast but James said he couldn't find you or something, is everything ok?” Kirk spoke quickly, his words filled with confusion and relief.

I sighed, “Yeah, everything is fine, where's James?” I glanced around the lobby, hoping to see him maybe.

Kirk nodded, “He's in his room, probably waiting for you,” He responded, and I nodded, already walking away.

“Thanks, Kirk,” I called back to him, already down the hallway and getting into the elevator, headed for the 6th floor where we stayed. The elevator hummed, gradually bringing me to my desired floor with a ding, the doors opened and I walked down the hallway, each step feeling like I was walking a thousand miles, even though the door to our room was probably no more than twenty feet away.

I now stood in front of the door, collecting myself and taking a deep breath before opening the door, seeing James standing in the hotel, on the phone with someone. He turned around when he heard me opening the door, his face turning relieved, setting down the phone and giving his full attention to me in what felt like years.

“Where the fuck have you been?” He asked with a scoff, he wasn't mad, or at least he didn't seem mad, just concerned.

I sighed, “Away. Do you remember anything from last night?”

James rubbed his forehead, “I.. no, not really, we did our show, and then everything blurry after that. Did something happen?”

I shrugged, still standing in the doorway, finally shutting the door, “Yeah, I guess. We need to talk.”

James grew more concerned, his face showing the thousands of thoughts running through his head. “Ok, uhm, sure, is everything okay?”

“I don't know.”

“What is that supposed to mean? What happened?” James began to sound more irritated, though still worried and confused.

“I want to know what happened too,” I stated, so lost that he couldn't even pinpoint why or how I was hurting.

“Enough of these bullshit games, the hell is up with you?” He seemed to only grow irritated with me.

I sighed, now I was getting annoyed with him. “No, what the hell is up with you? This is the first time you've tried to talk to me, in like, a week. You avoid me, you push me away, you won't kiss me, you won't even look at me! I have been neglected and ignored by you for weeks. Ever since this tour started, I have been your last priority.” I finally said, my words heavy yet rushed with emotion.

James was silent, he couldn't think of anything to say. He knew that I was right, but would he ever admit it? He sat on the bed, sighing, looking at the floor, and refusing to make eye contact with me.

The silence went on for about a minute, and I was losing my patience, “Are you gonna say anything or just..?” I finally muttered, growing tired of being ignored by him.

James shook his head, shrugging a bit. “I.. I don't know, I'm sorry, I never meant to be or tried to be cold to you, it's just.. I get like this on tour, y’know?” He mumbled, clearly digging for an excuse.

I scoffed, “But you have time to get drunk, party and fool around with other women?”

James just looked defeated, he didn't want to argue. “I'm sorry, ok? I don't know what to say.. Just, c’mere?” His voice was soft, tired.

I was hesitant, I didn't know why he wanted me to go to him, but I did, slowly walking towards him on the bed, and sitting down next to him. He laid his head against my shoulder, something I had missed, his touch. I didn't know what to say, or really what to do.

“I love you..” James mumbled to me softly, but I wasn't sure if he was truthful. I wanted to ask him if he really did because it never seemed like it anymore, but I knew better and to hold my tongue.

I sighed, my eyes on him, “I love you too..” I muttered in response. My words were true, I did love him, but did he? That's what I wasn't sure of.

“I'll change, ok? I won't drink as much, I won't be out as late after shows.. I won't ignore you anymore. That's a promise.” James swore to me, and I had no choice but to take his word for it, and to believe him.

“I hope that stays true,” I replied in a soft, slightly shaky tone as I let out a shaky sigh, possibly beginning a new stage of our relationship.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

sorry if this isn't too good! I also just had it sitting around for a week and I wanna move on to another idea I had

[a-dauntless-daffodil]

That was really sad man. But it did get me wondering, what type of pokemon would Emily have? Maybe a Togekiss? (I'm loving this pokemon AU)

gods. combine "what pokemon would Emily have" with the fan idea of her eventually ending up in HELL and you can get

-> Chaggie's Absol starts being very interested in Emily during heaven / hell meetings and Emily is SO flattered and delighted she doesn't stop to think why maybe this disaster sensing pokemon is suddenly into her

Charlie does see the warning signs but she's not gonna believe in another bad thing so soon nope, she's very determinedly like "I think it's cute! It can just be a cute thing! Absol is allowed to make normal friends!!" while Vaggie goes "uh oh" and "sure sweetie" and sends the Absol up with Emily at the end of the next meeting- getting very VERY worried when the Absol actually GOES with the seraph no problem...

(plus side Pentious gets to visit and cuddle the old Absol buddy without it being an omen of his impending death yay)

-something something something Emily uses the Absol and Vaggie's observations of them showing up in Pride specifically for Extermination Day as another proof what heaven is doing is WRONG and BAD and needs to stop, something something Lute can't take a Seraphim actually "betraying" heaven by siding fully with hell like this- REALLY can't stand Vaggie being brought up and used against her again, something something the Absol warns Emily of the attack just in time to save MOST of her wings, something, Lute gets sword blocked by the Absol long enough for seraph Emily to get over her shock and one hit K.O. her out of the fight, something, a horrified Sera wants to find a way to heal Emily but also thinks she has to keep her little sister out of sight from heaven until then to not cause more harm (or Raise Questions), and Emily is like, Thanks But Fuck That And Fuck You Too

she ends up in hell (with her remaining wings) not long after Chaggie's Absol first started being friends with her and instead of casting blame she just LOVES the Absol all the more for helping make sure she got down there as safely as she did

Vaggie isn't one bit jealous when the Absol sticks with Emily instead of going back to following Vaggie around. Her own scars have healed up quite a bit- Emily's are fresh- Vaggie knows the feeling

Charlie looks on the bright side and notes that the impromptu haircut Lute gave the Absol with her sword while it was trying to keep her from Emily kinda makes the Absol LOOK like Emily now, with bangs and everything, which is ADORABLE and deserving of SO many cute pictures being taken!

(no Charlie won't be crying in her gf's shoulder about all this) (no she won't blame herself for it a little) (yes she WILL need to be physically held back next time she sees Lute- she held herself back before out of respect for Vaggie's choice to let Lute live but now Vaggie's gonna have to do that in real life bc Fuck That Bitch) (Vaggie will hold Charlie back for Charlie's sake alone bc Vaggie will be twice damned if Lute will be the reason her gf finally does a murder) (save it for Val) (she'll kill Lute herself before she let's Lute have the satisfaction of being that kind of scar on Charlie's soul)

Anyway!!!!

befriending Absol is wonderful for Emily and, almost, makes up for leaving her Togekiss behind in heaven....

...Togekiss don't like being around conflict or war, it was clearly bracing itself to go to hell with Emily but- Emily couldn't stomach doing that to her pokemon pal

She leaves it with Pentious, hoping it can help him stay safe up in heaven, and after looking up what Togekiss evolves from (the egg-like Togepi) Pentious tears up remembering his Egg Bois and sobs and curls his whole snake body around the Togekiss SWEARING to defend it with hisssss new life!!! Some old echo of Togokiss's old kindness sensing Togetic form kicks in and it immediately bonds with with Pentious It's a happy bittersweet thing for Emily to watch happen right before she leaves, and her last view of heaven is watching her (now clearly his) Togekiss help keep Pentious airborne like a living floatation device as he awkwardly tries flapping his new wings and waving goodbye at Emily at the same time

(Lute is NOT happy finding out the filthy Sinner infiltrator is being guarded by a pokemon capable of such powerful attacks now. She'd gone to a lot of trouble getting Togekiss AWAY from Emily before trying to get the jump on the traitorous Seraph, but now everyone is on their guard, and Vaggie's damn Absol ruined everything, and Pentioius's new Togekiss is JUST as cheerfully passive aggressively smug as Emily was. Which is INFURIATING)

[firecrackerhh]

LMFAO dude what the fuck are you talking about? I’ve only had a tumblr account for like, what, 2 and a half years? Yeah I’ve made rants about antis and criticals before but I wasn’t even talking about you or anyone else specifically for that matter in any of those. I did not have specific usernames, I didn’t fucking put anyone else’s icon on my blog up until now. I haven’t accused you of being racist, a fucking Republican, any other negative bullshit you claim about me, I don’t fucking go after anyone specific in general! I only have 45 followers! I couldn’t fucking harass ANYONE even if I wanted to! I might think you’re a pain in the ass, but you aren’t worth going after!

Well…until you fucked up and started talking shit about me.

You brought this on yourself.

If there is one thing I hate more than anything it’s being a disingenuous little liar.

Fine, I said the word retarded, the horror, the agony! Funny tho how you have no problem with the word troglodyte, but you probably don’t know what that word means. However much I wish I could say I’m sorry for saying all that, I’m very much not. If anyone in the hazbin fandom follows me and is deeply upset by my lack of apology on the subject, you are welcome to unfollow me, we would not have gotten along anyway.

The only crime I’ve accused you and your ilk of is being a whiny fucking pissbaby who clearly does not understand the concept of “don’t like, don’t watch” and does NOTHING but BITCH online constantly, probably because you have no other hobbies whatsoever, which is fucking pathetic. Even I’m not that fucking miserable. Your behavior is not proving me wrong.

As if complaining about things you don’t like in a cartoon you don’t have to watch is any more mature than making a post calling you people troglodytes. You are not better than me in any way whatsoever.

If I were half as miserable as you portray yourself online I would actually consider killing myself.

I could genuinely be upset at the obviously fake bullshit you’re spewing about me, but nah, fuck that, you aren’t worth it.

However I do suppose this would be a grand opportunity for me to explain to you in vivid detail why I legit can’t stand you and how unbelievably goddamn stupid I think you are. Why?

Why does anyone do anything?

Also you fucking swung first, I was planning on never speaking about you in public like this, I blocked you for a good reason, but no, you just had to open your big stupid mouth. Sure I would see you complain about this or that, that’s fine. But now you made shit personal. I’m finishing this fight and you aren’t coming out of this unscathed.

You’re like a raving schizophrenic on the street that other people avoid, to act like your frankly delusional ramblings are at all an accurate portrayal of who I am as a person even though you have never even talked to me before, not that you could anyway since I blocked you waaaay before you saw that post so I’m not sure how you managed to see it anyway, would be coddling you, yknow, like a baby.

And considering you don’t want people younger than 17 on your blog I was under the assumption you were yknow, an adult. Making callout posts on random nobodies just because they hurt your precious wittle feefees is not mature adult behavior. Don’t claim you have maturity when you obviously never fucking show it. Don’t throw stones when you fucking own a glass house.

I’m not even mature myself, I have never claimed otherwise, but god, I feel like I’ve aged 40 years just looking at your fucking blog, don’t you ever get tired of being such a whiny immature brat? Are you ever satisfied with anything or do you consider whining like a bitch as second nature to you?

Of course, I can’t claim to be any better, I admit, I’m rather wordy when it comes to my posts myself, I have a tendency to get angry at things most people wouldn’t make a big deal of, my mind is going at a thousand miles an hour all the goddamn time and I have a thousand different thoughts about so many things it would make your brain explode.

There is one difference between us however.

I’m not stupid enough to insult specific people directly in public when they haven’t fucking done anything to me.

The post you’re bitching about was very general, I did not mention you specifically at all.

Wow! You insult me and my alleged lack of emotional intelligence (pot calling the fucking kettle black I see, talk about hypocrisy) so if anything you are no better than me. Can you say one sentence without obviously projecting? Holy shit, look inward, for the love of god.

Maybe I would’ve been kinder to you if you had the proper emotional intelligence to realize that blatantly insulting people is not a way to get them on your good side. Perhaps that sounds hypocritical of me, but it isn’t like I made that post you got all mad at with the intention of making friends out of it. The point was to insult antis and criticals and it did the job. At least I’m honest about the fact I’m a fucking bitch. Unlike yourself.

There is a reason I put my header as ‘Tis I the Werebitch after all. It’s a warning. A warning you have promptly ignored.

I don’t give a fuck how old you actually are, you act like a fucking baby, a spoiled brat in adult online spaces and expect actual adults to fucking coddle you and pretend like your fucking dogshit opinions actually have any fucking merit?

And you think I’m the joke?

Trying to cancel me too? Me? A nobody with not even 50 followers? God, that’s pathetic, if anything, you’re the joke.

No, actually you’re worse! Jokes are meant to be funny! And I’m not laughing anymore. What you are, is obnoxious. I have to wonder if you actually have any IRL and online friends or if your constant whining has driven them all away over the years. Do the other antis and criticals even like you? God knows the fandom doesn’t want you around. Shit, other antis and criticals are tolerable compared to you!

You are no one’s savior. You aren’t helping actual people by bitching about a cartoon that will continue to exist whether you like it or not. Viv, contrary to your positively demented belief, is not the fucking Antichrist, and you sure as fuck aren’t Jesus Christ.

So convinced you’re morally superior to fans of the show because you “gasp” ‘criticize’ it! But not really, you wouldn’t know how to critically analyze something if you took a fucking college course on the subject. You don’t criticize it, you bitch about it. There’s more to critical analysis than saying “yeah this is garbage and if you like it you’re an idiot, or a racist, or a homophobe” Or whatever fucking negative bullshit you spew on a near daily basis.

You never have one positive word to say about the show you allegedly like, much less for the creator herself. No fucking wonder she blocked you on Twitter. You radiate toxic vibes like the Elephant’s foot at Chernobyl and you have the nerve to act offended when people rightfully block you for your immature, self righteous attitude?

You sound fucking delusional, and you’re surprised no one takes you seriously?

You’re not just a clown, you’re the entire fucking circus.

Never mind the fucking bullshit you were spewing at Morgana Ignis, but sadly I can only have 10 pictures in one blog post.

No one in this fandom gives a fuck what you fucking think about anything, much less Viv herself, because you have your head so far up your ass you don’t even fucking realize every word that comes out of your mouth is full of shit!

Just because you hate a stupid fucking cartoon, that doesn’t make you special. The fact I like a stupid fucking cartoon does not make me special. I just like it, and no one’s whining is going to change that.

Cry yourself a river, build a bridge, and get over it.

Cognitive dissonance is an astounding phenomenon. How you continue to exist in such a state has to be confounding to every psychologist in the nation.

The fact you used me as a proxy for your feelings on an entire fandom makes you look really pathetic and frankly I’m convinced you need fucking therapy or something. This shit legit isn’t healthy for you mentally.

You don’t like the fandom? Fine, most fandoms are fucking dumpster fires anyway, but to fucking act like we’re some fucking hive mind and that we all automatically agree with the absolute worst of the fans really shows just how fucking immature you really are. If I really wanted to be a dramatic bitch I could say it amounts to slander.

You know what they say about assumptions don’t you?

You want to know my actual opinions on shit? Fucking ask me directly like a fucking adult. Assuming you’re capable of it. Not this bullshit where you make up my beliefs and then argue with the straw man of me you made up in your head, as if you come up with these posts in the shower.

Tho of course that should be difficult for you, since yknow. I blocked you forever ago. But knowing your obnoxious ass, this’ll find a way to you one way or another.

Get help. Seek therapy. Go outside. Learn a new skill, anything, if only so you aren’t such a miserable fucking person.

If you fucking hate me or whatever, the feeling is fucking mutual. You are legitimately one of the most irritating crybabies I’ve ever had the displeasure of knowing exists.

I’m sure to many that the fact I’m even making this post is evidence I’m just as bad as they are or whatever else, if not worse, all I’m gonna say is be glad I keep most of my thoughts in DM’s. I could be so much worse. I imagine not too many of you have read this far, rather exhausting isn’t it?

Imagine how I felt reading this bitch’s fucking bullshit diatribe against me.

Ps. This bit of advice is worth listening to imo, it may be familiar to you. I suggest you take it Squiddy.

Projection is a bitch isn’t it?

🔥🧨~Firecracker out~🔥🧨

Don’t know about you guys, but man I love me some fried calamari, don’t you?

🦑

🔥

[dyketubbo]

jesus christ you will never be satisfied with what ccs have to say about anything will you. like someone brought up the allegations on tubbo's stream and he is doing what he promised, looking into it before he says anything about it, but you're upset that he hasn't done anything yet? you know how twitter is, how dream stans specifically are, about the possible consequences for speaking out when he doesn't know things yet- tubbo's literally doing the best course of action here and you're just not happy with it. fuck's sake.

do you have like a personal problem with me or something. the only ccs who have spoken on this are dream himself (who lied and used manipulative language in the twitlonger + posted it on his priv which is inherently suspicous + hes who the allegations are against which all means that yes im not going to be "satisfied" with him), connor (who dismissed it, so im not "satisfied" with him either), and tubbo (who just did lore with dream despite knowing there were allegations, but is the only one so far who not only confirmed that he knows and confirmed that once he knows more he'll speak on it). if you mean that im upset about ccs not speaking up about it, yes, i am, and you have no right to be upset at me for that.

what i said about tubbos response was that it is not ideal, but i do think that hes given the most promising response so far. am i a little upset that he seemingly knew about the allegations and decided to keep working with dream for a bit instead of saying he wanted to uh. not do that so he could look into the allegations? yeah, lil bit. i think looking into the case should have been prioritized over his minecraft roleplay. you have no right to be upset at me about that either.

im a little upset that he continued to work with dream. i am not upset that hes waiting to say more, and you believing that that was my intention is not only a bad faith misinterpretation but also clearly biased by the fact that you seem to have something against me. my post about it literally said i was glad that he was going to look into it and that he wants to talk. no fucking where did i say i wanted him to speak before he was ready, i said i wish that he prioritized looking into it over lore. dont put words in my fucking mouth, and dont be a little bitch while youre at it.

im fucking tired of people like you acting like you get to have a say in MY emotions and MY reactions on MY blog. get the fuck over yourself, what kind of guardian raised you to be that goddamn disrespectful, huh? to waltz into someones space and tell them off based on how you took their words in the worst way you could? to act as if you have some personal problem because a fucking stranger on the internet wasnt kissin some white boys ass enough to fit your standards.

i made it clear that i was happy that tubbo addressed it at all, that he was going to look into it. and if your response to that was to come into my inbox with this? go back to elementary anon, because clearly you didnt learn any goddamn manners. shut the fuck up and get the hell out of my sight with that shit. learn how to get your act together before you go on bitching at me.

[slenderman-apologist]

Bigshot

Why would you be surprised i'm writng another story about Slenderman again.

Tw: gore (not heavy), murder, possession, substance use (alcohol specifically mentioned), slender is being silly again.

it's 1633 words

It was a chill-yet-still night in the forest, not a sound disturbing the peace nature brings, birds chirping, crickets buzzing, all the usual yet beloved parts of his home he loved oh-so much. Except for one thing. 

He couldn’t help but be able to hear mocking laughter and loud talking from afar. The village never seems to run out of drunken teens who think they are above the rules, does it? 

No need to waste his time thinking about it, he will have to get rid of them anyway.

“Come on Brandon! You’re literally a jock, you should have no problem with a little hiking!?” Bethany mocked him with an annoying voice; the girl had always been hard to deal with, especially when tipsy. 

“Oh fuck off Beth, it’s literally midnight, I can’t see shit around here!” Brandon snapped back at the girl, but she seemed to care not about bothering the boy anymore. 

“Should have brought a flashlight man, better luck next time.” Said Katie, leading the group at the front with a flashlight in her hand. 

“Just chill out, we are almost there.”  She  mumbled while stopping at a small pit surrounded by stones and three logs; clearly an abandoned campfire spot. 

They all agreed to set the tent there, seeing as there was no reason to keep hiking around in the dark. Once the grueling process of setting up a tent for four people was over, like the smart pyromaniacs they were, they set a few random sticks and small logs on fire, not bothering to try out the old timey girl scout techniques. 

And now that they were all settled in, it was time for the cliche activities unsupervised teens would do when camping, aka make ridiculously burnt smores, drink the cheapest cider they could lie about their age to buy, share some cigarettes, tell the scary stories and gossip circulating around town, and play truth or dare, or perhaps spin the bottle. Depends on how drunk they were.

Jared started the game by diving right in, even if Brandon chose Truth.

“Sooo Brandon,,,, you got any bitches yet? Are you still married to football?” 

“I still am, yes, devoted as hell to the victory, man.” He answered spitefully, knowing very well this question was solely to embarrass him.

“Don’t sweat it dude, being single is cool too!” Exclaimed Kate as she tried to comfort him after that low blow start. 

“Fine Jared, your turn then. Truth or dare?” Brandon asked, ready for revenge.

“Dare.” He said, with a grin.  Jared was known to be no quitter by any means, he was happy to take on any kind of challenge thrown his way. 

“Brave… I dare you to,,” he pauses for a moment to think of something of equal caliber to what he got, “take off your shirt, climb that tree and tell us what you see, ok?” 

Jared stared in disbelief, drank the last bits of his cider and went ahead. 

Since Jared was also quite fit, it took no time for him to climb the tree. 

“Allright loverboy, what do you see?” Brandon asked once they saw Jared settle on the top. 

“Okay,, uh I see some lights far back in the town, lemme see what’s deeper into the woo-” He was cut off mid sentence.

The others on the ground were unaware, but Jared stopped talking because he was met with a sight not many live to tell. 

He couldn’t move, words had left him, but Jared was a brave boy. He got over his fear in a matter of seconds and moved to scream for his friends’ attention. 

Unfortunately, scared people are not as attentive, so they don't notice when someone pulls their leg until it is too late, and they fall easily. 

 Jared fell from the tree, his body twisting and tangling as he reached for some purchase, before his back hit the ground with a splitting 

Crack .

He didn't move. He laid motionless, only the shallow movement of his chest indicating he was still alive.

His lover, Beth,  came to his rescue immediately. “Jared, honey what the fuck, are you okay???” 

He could only mumble a few words of warning in his hardly conscious state and signaled with his eyes towards the cause of the “accident”.

Everyone was horrified. They definitely expected a situation similar to this, since everybody brought their signature weapons (a bat with nails in it for Katie, a decorated pocket knife for Bethy, a machete for Brandon, and a crowbar for Jared.. Not like he will be using it though.)

All they did was stare until it stepped out of the coverage made by the branches and leaves; the moment he moved everyone but Brandon rushed to grab their weapons if they didn’t have them in arms reach already. 

It took another step forward and tendrils emerged from its back. This is when everyone came to the realization they had absolutely no chance of fighting this monster; fleeing was the best option. 

 They took a step back in sync, then another; and they booked it. 

As they ran and left everything behind, including Jared,  they heard a weak scream.. Must have been him.. Due to his fall, he couldn’t get up and run with the team. Brandon took a moment to silently thank his friend for the sacrifice he made for his team, thinking with the time bought they could get away. But they ran straight into a dead end as if the forest was against them. 

The team of (now) 3 formed a circle for their best chance of survival. A moment later the creature appeared in front of them again, now ready to attack and show no mercy. 

Kate was a creative and quick thinking girl, though, and she had an idea.

“Truth or dare?” She shouted at him. It tilted his head in confusion. Was she seriously trying to play a game with him instead of begging for mercy?

“You heard me, truth or dare?” She repeated, while signaling to her friends it was time to slowly back away and run when possible. It stayed silent for a mere second.

“Truth.” It said, out of sheer curiosity. How surprising. Kate didn’t think this distraction was going to work at all. Cockiness and the substances took over her. 

“Ya ever had a girlfriend, sir?” She asked, a grin painting her face. 

How unoriginal. It’s one of the first things he thought Katie was going to ask. 

“Yes, I've had several partners over the years. I hoped you’d ask something better with your only question. You disappoint me, girl.”

Kate only snickered and took a step back to be closer to her friends who no longer felt too threatened. 

“Now it is your turn;  truth or dare?” It asked, as the muscles on its face formed a horrifying imitation of a smile.

“Dare.” She replied with a challenging voice to her friends’ horror. 

Amusing, she really lets cockiness and pride make her biggest mistake for her. But who is he to question? 

It held its disproportionate hand out towards her, and simply said; “Come closer then.” Kate’s stomach dropped. She was not going to let fear humiliate her. 

Something in her head is clearly loose; is it really worth it to value ego over life?

Kate grimaced and swiftly walked towards the creature, stopping only a few steps away from its “hand”. 

It asks mockingly;

“Tell me, Kate. You seem to be the leader of this little group, aren’t you?”

She raises an eyebrow, then with a tone of annoyance she replies.

“We have no leader, sir.” 

“So what are you then? The show off? The big shot of your little parade?”

“Positive. I am the biggest shot you have ever had the misfortune to encounter, sir.” She smugly says without hesitation.

She turned to walk back toward her friends, assuming she had completed her dare. But as if it happened in the blink of an eye, the hand wrapped around her skull; her body went completely numb, and Kate fell unconscious with only the hand holding her up by the head from collapsing onto the ground.

This seemed to be more than enough to make sure Kate’s friends ran around the dead end, and started running again without considering ever stopping again until they were safe. 

Much to their fright, both the monster and now possessed Kate are faster than them. Brandon put up the fight of his life (literally) and yet still lost to the mindless puppet of Kate embarrassingly quickly. Bethany watched in horror as her best friend in the world mercilessly distorted the skull and ribcage of her other good friend. 

After Kate made Brandon look practically unrecognizable, she slowly turned and moved towards Beth. She still foolishly saw her friend in Katie’s eyes and called out to her. 

“Kate, girl, snap out of that shit, what are you doing?! Please stop, let’s ditch this and go home!” The plea went unheard.

Kate stopped in her tracks; she seemed to act as if she considered the offer  for a moment. Possession, especially by an entity with this kind of power; is stronger than lowly human emotions. 

She swung. Then again, and again. No matter the knife she had,  Beth’s lifeless body with the skull shattered like an egg, brains scrambled to jelly inside, ruined by the nails in the bat cradled to the ground just like everyone else’s. 

“Kate” has decided to leave the scene and  move her shell of a body someplace calmer. Once she wandered to a clearing, the weapon slid out of her hand and soon she collapsed next to it as well. 

But at least, unlike her friends, she will be waking up tomorrow with the worst hangover ever, as well as some nasty bruises and wounds accompanied with a horrible migraine, extreme distress, and confusion.

[forever-rogue]

Bitter

A/N: Pain? Pain? Did someone ask for some pain? No? Well, here’s some pain anyways! No happy endings in sight! Enjoy! Xx (also very loosely based on the song Bitter!)

Pairing: Javier x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 4.7k

Warnings: language, light smut (18+ only!)

MASTERLIST

JAVIER MASTERLIST

»»————-　♡　————-««

He's here. Of course he is.

You were mildly surprised, but honestly, you'd have been more surprised if he'd skipped out. 

You clutched your glass of wine so tightly that it seemed to be a miracle that it didn't shatter into a thousand tiny little bits. Just like your heart had done. Because of him. Because of Javier.

You hated him. But in a sick and twisted way, all through how the universe seemed to work, you couldn't ever completely hate him. When you'd been good, you were good. Great even. But as soon as things turned sour, they'd gone bitter in a heartbeat. 

For a man that claimed he didn't do relationships, Javier Peña proved to be an excellent partner - a good friend, a caring lover, and a fun time. That was until he decided that relationships absolutely weren't his thing. Because everything had been a lie.

But maybe it had been you? 

Because for a man that claimed he didn't do relationships, he sure had liked it with you - until he didn't. Apparently he was willing to wager all of that again - or needed something else from someone else.

At least that's what you gleaned from the blonde that was hanging onto his arm and giggling at seemingly everything he said. It was enough to make you want to throw up then and there. 

You’d been at this silly little holiday party for long enough, you suddenly decided. Downing the rest of your wine, the slight buzz had set in but wasn’t enough to actually help to suppress your feelings, you resolved to make a few goodbyes and leave. Going home to an empty and dark apartment was better than staying here. 

“You might as well just shoot him,” Steve Murphy’s voice reached your ears and you tensed up before realizing who it was. The tall blonde was standing next to you, a drink in his own hand and a scowl on his face, “it’d be easier than glaring daggers all night.”

“Which is precisely why I’m leaving,” you took your empty flute and shoved it in his hand. You almost felt bad for snapping at him - almost. He’d been Javier’s partner and friend first and foremost, and although you’d come to know him as your own friend, it was still hard to separate the two of them. But he was a good man, and to be fair, he’d been almost as men to Javier as you had when it all went down. However, unlike you, he was stuck working with him. You were lucky enough to work for the CIA instead of the DEA, so you had the mercy of getting to easily avoid him.

“I’ve never seen her before,” he offered as if that was going to make everything better, “he’s probably-”

“I don’t care,” you insisted sharply, bitter venom lacing your words, “I really don’t, Steve. I just - I’m leaving.”

“Do you need me to-”

“I’m good,” you insisted. 

You were anything but. 

“Kid-”

“I’m good,” you repeated firmly as you pressed past him and headed for the exit of the stuffy hall. You didn’t even bother turning around to say goodbye to say or anything. You just wanted to get out of there and go home as quickly as possible. 

Fuck Javier Peña. Fuck him for making you fall in love with him, and fuck him for breaking you in one foul swoop. 

»»————-　♡　————-««

“You know, for someone that claims he’s not into the whole romantic relationship bullshit,” you grinned at Javi as you sat on his kitchen counter, swinging your legs back and forth as he prepared dinner, “you’re pretty good at it.”

“Hmm,” he mused as he took a sip of his beer before putting his hands on your thighs and stepping between your legs, “maybe your standards are too low, Dulzura.”

“Maybe you don’t give yourself enough credit,” you teased back, only to be silenced by Javier crashing his lips onto yours. You could already feel yourself melting into his touch, as his arms wrapped around your waist and yours around his neck, “Javi.”

Before things could go any further, the two of you were interrupted by a loud crackling from the pan. A heavy sigh left his lips as he pressed one more to your forehead before he turned back to the pan, “I will admit, I never thought I’d be here making you dinner.”

“Me specifically, or a woman in general?” you carded a hand through his dark locks before smirking at him.

“Both,” he admitted, “not a woman in general because like I said, fuck this romantic bullshit, and definitely not you, because we didn’t start on the best terms when you got here.”

“That was because you were an asshole,” you stuck out your tongue as he just laughed. 

“And you were a bitch,” you nodded at his assessment. Neither of you had been particularly kind to the other upon your first several encounters. Javier was stubborn and hard-headed, you were fierce with a lot to prove in a male dominated world. Opposites on an unwavering spectrum, and yet more alike than either of you cared to admit. That's probably why you'd both been at each other's throats time and time again - you insisted he was a chauvinistic pig; he swore you were an ice queen that just hated everyone.

One thing had led to another and eventually there was a singular moment that broke the proverbial camel's back. It had been a quiet evening with both of you trying to get work done that had led you to say something to Javier to which he had responded with a simple, but calculated, uh huh honey. 

You couldn't even respond with any words, funding yourself utterly unable, before you grabbed the collar of his slightly too tight pink button up and crashing your lips fiercely onto his. He'd responded in kind - eager and more than willing.

That night, which you'd both sworn up and down would be a one time thing, quickly turned into more. More turned into Javier dropping his nighttime visits to the brothels, and focusing on you. More had turned into this.

"I don't think we've really changed," you admitted as you reached for his beer and downed the rest of it in one go with a wicked smirk, "I think we've just come to realize we're good together. In case you haven't noticed babe, I still have to put up with so much shit. Have some tits and men find it fitting to treat you like a piece of meat."

“You know if anyone ever does or says another thing to you, I’ll-”

“I know, Javier,” you promised with a noncommittal shrug of your shoulders, "I just want to be able to do things on my own and be respected. Just like you and Steve and all the other men are."

"You outshine them all easily," he set the spoon down on the edge of the pot, crossing his arms over his broad chest, "they're idiots. You're not - never forget that."

"How very sweet," you rolled your eyes playfully at his dramatic words but you knew he was truthful, "a model boyfriend. You're better at this whole thing than you give yourself credit for."

"Yeah yeah,"  he snorted as he flipped you off, "don't get used to it - or tell anyone. Just for you, Dulzura."

"Don't worry, baby," you shot him a cheeky wink, "our little secret for now."

»»————-　♡　————-««

The door to your apartment was thrown open in anger as you stumbled in, trying to contain your tears of anger. Stumbling over your own feet, you kicked off your heels and cursed them before slamming the door shut and locking it. You weren’t drunk, nowhere near drunk to be honest, but gods did you wish you were. Anything to get the persistent thought of him out of your mind. 

He was the one that fucking cheated, and yet here you were, the one that was suffering. All while he seemed to be having the time of his life. 

A heavy sigh escaped past chapped lips as you dragged yourself to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of beer. One look at the label caused you to audibly groan - even it had to remind you of him. It was his favorite kind, left over from one of the many times he’d brought take out and beer over for an easy dinner after a long day. 

Throwing it into the sink, the bottle shattered and the golden liquid rushed down the drain as you only cried harder. Fuck, fuck, fuck. You shouldn’t still care this much. But that was the root of the problem - you did care. Because you’d loved him, fully and completely and thought he loved you too. A silly, foolish thought. 

Dragging yourself to the couch, you flopped onto your back and covered your wet eyes with the back of your arm as you tried to calm yourself. But it only worked momentarily as you remembered all the times you’d been with him on this couch. 

How he’d pull you into his lap, and kiss you until you were both breathless. How he’d fuck you after a long hard day, coming in to find you ready and waiting for him. How he’d lay down and watch television with you next to him, a messy tangle of limbs and lips. 

How he’d said I love you for the first time on this very couch.

»»————-　♡　————-««

“Javi,” your moan was like the sweetest music in his ear as he leaned down to pepper kisses along your neck and jaw. Your arms wrapped around him like a vice grip as you held his body close to yours while he thrusted into you, “right there, please. Yes.”

"I've got you, baby," he whispered as he dragged his tongue along your collarbone, continuing to meet the roll of your hips with slow thrusts, "you feel so fucking perfect."

"Right there," your eyes squeezed shut as your toes started to curl and your vision became hazy. That familiar warmth of your release washed over your whole body, "Javier."

"Fuck, Dulzura," he dropped his head and rested it in the crook of your shoulder as he felt your walls tighten around him. He moaned in your ear, low and sultry, as your huffed him to your body, "I- fuck - I love you."

And just like that it felt your whole world suddenly stopped. Your eyes snapped wide open as you tried to figure out if what you thought he said was actually said or if it was made up in your mind. But as you met his dark eyes, there was a nervous, panicked look in them. Clearly he hadn't meant to say them out loud.

"Javier?" you reached up and touched his cheek before gently brushing away a stray lock of hair. He keened into your touch as it was enough to push him over the edge and he spilled inside of you. He all but collapsed on you, suddenly boneless, the magnitude of his words not lost on him, "did you mean it? I-I don't want to hear it unless you mean it."

And then it was silent for a few moments as you tried to catch your breath.

"Yes," he finally broke the tension and slowly lifted off you. Pulling out in one fluid motion, he sat back on the couch and pulled you into his lap, "I fucking mean it. I've never said it like this before to anyone, but fuck if I don't mean it."

"Javier,” you leaned and crashed your lips against, hungry and wanting, just as needy as before he fucked you senseless. It was messy and hard, both of you fighting for dominance as his large hand found the back of your neck and he held you close to him, “you’re an asshole. But I love you too.”

“Dulzura,” his hands found your bum as he gave it a firm a squeeze and caused you to grind against him, causing him to moan into your mouth, “fuck me.”

“I plan on it,” you whispered with a smirk on your face as he practically melted into your touch.

»»————-　♡　————-««

You slid off the couch in a fit of your own tears and choked back sobs. How could you fall for such a lie; you felt so stupid, so dumb, so used. You worked for the fucking CIA, you should have been able to spot a lie from a mile away.  But this one, the one right in front of your face, whispered to you during an intimate and sacred moment, had blindsided you and played you for a fool. 

Javier Peña was a fucking liar. He did it for a living half the time; why should this have been any different? Apparently they weren’t. You were just another way for Javier to have control over something and get his pent up anger and energy. 

He had moved on, so easily, so effortlessly, all while you were here, falling apart. You’d never let someone in like this before, had never opened up to someone so fully and completely. 

This was a prime example of why you didn’t.

You pulled yourself up from the floor and wiped at your teary eyes and snotty nose and dragged yourself to the bedroom. 

»»————-　♡　————-««

“What are you thinking about, Dulzura?” his voice was still thick with sleep as he draped an arm around your waist and pulled you against his chest. You made a small sound of delighted surprise, but your eyes were still firmly closed. It was early still and the dawn’s morning light was just beginning to filter in through your sheer curtains.

“‘M sleeping,” you insisted groggily, barely able to contain your giggles as he pressed kisses to your shoulder. 

“Bullshit,” he whispered as you huffed in jest. He could always read you like a book; the truth was that you’d been up for some time, eyes closed as a million thoughts ran through your mind, “you’re much too quiet to be asleep.”

“You realize what you’ve said is an oxymoron, right?”

“When applied to normal people yes, but with you - no,” he called out completely and you slowly turned around so you were facing him. He was right - you tended to make some sort of noises or sounds as you slept. The fact that it was dead silent was a giveaway, “dime, Cariño.”

“It’s nothing important, Javi,” you insisted as you rested your head next to his on the soft pillow. He sighed dramatically as he traced aimless shapes into your back, his fingers surprisingly soft and warm, “in the chaos that are our lives, it’s absolutely trivial and silly.”

“I like trivial and silly - I like you,” he insisted as his soft brown eyes studied yours, “out with it, or it’ll kill me all day, baby.”

“I was just thinking about this,” you pointed to his body and yours, “us. What are we doing? What’ll happen to us when all of this is over and we can be...normal?”

“What do you want to happen?”

“I asked you first, asshole,” you laughed as he kissed your forehead, “I like this - us - but if this is all that there’s ever going to be, I kind of want to know that too.”

“What do you want?” he asked, suddenly adopting a serious, “do you want this? If you want this...I want this too.”

“Javier,” reaching up slowly, you placed a gentle hand on his cheek as you watched him for a few moments before placing a chaste kiss to his plush lips, “I want this...I want you. I’m all in.”

“I know it probably doesn’t seem like much, but you have me,” he promised, and you could feel yourself practically melting into him, “that much you never have to question.”

“I love you,” you whispered before closing your eyes and let him pull against him as you left call you back, “I mean it, Javier. I didn’t think I ever would love anyone, especially not you, but it’s true.”

“I love you too, Dulzura.”

»»————-　♡　————-««

It was all a fucking lie. Your chest rose and fell in anger as you grabbed the few pictures you had of yourself and Javier off of your dresser and smashed them onto the floor. The bed sheets were next, including the pillows that seemed to be doomed to smell like him for all eternity. Everything went into an angry messy pillow on the floor as you trembled with anger and upset exhaustion. 

“Oh god,” you whispered in a choked sob to yourself as you buried your face in your hands. How could it hurt this fucking much? All because of one man. 

Because you loved him so fucking much it made your heart physically ache. Because you loved him with every fiber of your being, Because you had loved him fully and fallen for every single pretty little word he offered you. Because you loved him completely and he had just dumped you as soon as you were no longer shiny and new. As soon as someone else caught his eye.

How easy it had been for him. All the while you had been an oblivious fool.

»»————-　♡　————-««

“I’m going to go and start laundry,” the basket under your arm was full with a combination of your clothes. Javier had been spending more and more time at your apartment, almost like he lived there. And it was all terribly natural; a domestic bliss that effortlessly fell into place. 

“Need a hand?” Javier was busy in the kitchen making dinner for the two of you. There was finally some down time and you’d collectively decided to have a lazy, quiet weekend in.

“I got it,” you promised as you opened the door to head to the laundry, “be back in a few.”

He made a small sound of acknowledgment as you left. You hummed to yourself as you walked down the stairs and into the deserted open, grabbing the first washer you saw. Pulling out the clothes one by one, you placed them in, but confusion quickly hit you. Javier’s work shirts had a...different smell to them. Frowning, you brought the pink button up to your nose and took a good whiff. Immediately, your heart started to pound in your chest as you realized that it most definitely wasn’t your perfume or his aftershave on it. 

Quickly tossing the offending article into the washer, you grabbed another shirt and smelled it again, only to find the same thing. That’s when you realized - those were both shirts he had been wearing on the nights he’d come home extremely late, long after you’d been in bed. 

A sense of dread and doom washed over you like a tidal wave as you abandoned everything and ran up the stairs to your apartment. You burst through the door and Javier jumped at the intrusion as he looked at you with a surprised look on his face, “is everything okay?”

“I don’t know, Javier,” there was a shake to your voice as you closed the door behind you and looked him dead in the eyes, refusing to look away, “tell me - is everything okay?”

“Dulzura-”

“Your shirts,” your voice cracked as you realized you were about to hear the inevitable. You felt like you already knew the truth, but hearing it from his own mouth was what you needed, “they don’t smell like you...o-o-or me. What happened to your shirts, Javier? And you don’t lie to me. Don’t you dare fucking lie to me.”

“If you have to ask, then you already know,” how easily he steeled himself as he set his spoon on the stove and turned off the pot. No emotion crossed his face as he started back at you with a neutral mask; Agent Pena was in full force, “look, dul - what do you want me to say?”

“Something? Anything?” tears had already pearled up and cascaded down your cheeks as you started at him in awe, “tell me you didn’t fucking cheat on me and you’re being this causal about this.”

“Then I won’t say it,” he whispered as he took a step closer, “because you already know.”

“You’re not even going to try and defend your actions?” you felt like this must have been some sort of hysterical joke at your expense. Everything was crumbling down around you and he didn’t even seem to care, “Javier, I love you - I’m….I’m in love with you. Y-you told me you loved me too...that you wanted this.”

“For someone that works for the CIA you're not very observant sometimes,” he shook his head as he took a long breath in and out, “look...I’m not going to try and defend my actions or lie to you. I needed the information you could provide to me so I could get a leg up on your little department. This is a messy game, chiquita, a messy game where you can’t trust anyone and you need to watch your every move. In this game, you win or you die, there’s no other way to look at it. You gave me what I needed, so I gave you what you needed.”

“A lie,” your mind was reeling as you tried to make sense of it all and his words crashed around your ears. None of this was ever real….it was all a lie, a horrid, painful lie. At your expense, “it never meant anything to you.”

“I care about you,” he insisted as you scoffed between your sobs, “and I do want to keep you safe. I just...you had more insight than I could have imagined. It was a good thing while it lasted, right? Why look at this as more than it was?”

“Because I love you!” you shouted at him, “because this was real to me! Because I imagined a life and a future with you. How could you do this? You could have just been honest with me…”

“We both know that never would have worked,” he laughed bitterly, “but think of all the good times, they were real at the time, weren’t they? You were happy…”

“While living a lie,” you reminded him, “it was never real. You never...you never loved me. I should have known that none of this ever meant anything to you.”

“Listen-”

“When would you have told me the truth?”

“Eventually,” he shrugged as he stared at his feet, “we’re not alloted this type of life, this romantic bullshit - we’re just not. You have to accept and move on.”

“Get out,” you couldn’t believe that every good thing in your life for the past year had been a lie. Who else had known? Who else was in on it?

“I will keep you safe,” he promised but you weren’t even sure if you could trust that much. When did his lies start and stop?

“I said get out,” you threw open the door and pointed at it for him to leave, “I never want to see you or hear your voice again. If I do, it will be too soon. I loved you, Javier. I really fucking did. I can’t believe I actually pictured a future with you. I can’t believe I thought I meant a goddamn thing to you. Get out and leave and don’t ever come back.”

“I-”

“Get out!” you screamed as you rushed down the hall to your bedroom and slammed the door closed. You collapsed onto the floor into a fitful, sobbing rage. You heard him igh heavily a few times before the sounds of his retreating footsteps reached your ears and he left, closing the door gently behind him. 

You felt like a fucking fool. Used and hurt and worst of  - heartbroken.

»»————-　♡　————-««

Examining the mess on your floor, you gave it a good kick before leaving the room and your apartment all together. You quickly ran outside and down the few blocks to Javier’s apartment, clutching at the spare key in your pocket. 

You could see that his lights were off, and he likely wouldn’t be home for sometime. You jogged up the stairs and let yourself into his place, sighing at the familiarity of it all. 

It looked exactly like it had the last time you’d been there. Pictures of the two of you were strewn through and you still found your clothes hanging in his closet.

Just like you had done at your own place, you smashed each picture on the floor, making sure it was all utterly destroyed. Your clothes were ripped to shreds and joined the glass rubble. It was probably wrong, probably too childish, but in the moment you didn’t care. Your entire love, your entire future had all been a lie. 

When you were satisfied with your handiwork, you threw the key on top of the pile and walked out, not even bothering to slam the door. You walked back home slowly, soaking in the sights and sounds of the city at night. It was calming - grounding even - usually. But tonight it failed completely. All you could focus on was your ragged breathing and the blood pounding in your ears. 

It all served as a singular reminder.

You were stupid, foolish, and dumb. And now - bitter. 

»»————-　♡　————-««

Permanent Taglist:  @queenbbarnes  @persephonesnebula   @ah-callie  @blushingwueen  @thisis-theway @rosetophighlander  @rae-gar-targaryen    @hiscyarika  @readsalot73  @huliabitch  @ollyoxenfrees @coffeeandtodd  @beepbeepsephy   @scarlettwitcher  @nerdyknightwritersblog  @choicesarcade  @arrowswithwifi  @everythingaboutnothingstuff  @suckerfor-fanfics  @bestintheparsec @javihoney  @aeryntheofficial  @hail-doodles @engineeredfiction @aeryntheofficial  @asgardianvamp21  @keithseabrook27  @karmezii  @dearspacepirates  @thatsuitlooksgoodonyou  @paintballkid711 @mrpascals @lv7867 @artsymaddie @gooddaykate @rosiefridayrogersunday @heyitmelexie @criminalmind1927 @justanotherblonde23 @coni-martina @thewayofthemandalorian @phoenixhalliwell @lucifer @cosmoschick @kochamcie @linkpk88 @leaiorganas @nikkixostan @haley-the-comet @chibi-yuki @computeringturtle @4ng3lf43 @intu-witch-tion @wondergal2001 @gingerbreadandpaper @willowtheewisp @milkxxkookies @smollpinkgirl @zukoyonce  @boomtownboy @velia27 @discowitchyy @kiss-evans @theorganasolo  @mishasminion360 @its–fandom–darling​ @emmy626 @nyasiaaaaa​ ​

[moonbaby26]

(gif from Jason Passaro’s youtube edit here)

Title: One Shitty Friday Night (Part 2) *contains some smut*

Pairing: Peter Maximoff x Fem!Reader

Summary: Set after the events of Deadpool 2, this is the conclusion from the previous part here. After your semi-disastrous double date night, you, Peter, Kitty, and Colossus head home with Deadpool and Russell in tow to face Logan, Charles, and Erik back at the mansion. You also get some well earned alone time with Peter at last, only to go back to chaos the following morning with Peter confronting Gambit, and Deadpool popping back in.

Warnings: It’s still a bit of Deadpool and all that entails, but only at the beginning and end. *In this part there actually is some Peter x Reader sex.* But you’re welcome to skip over that if uncomfortable with it. I clearly mark in red before and after any smut within the story so readers can choose what to read and still enjoy just the fluff and character interactions before and after if wanted. ❤️

Peter Maximoff x Reader Masterlist

——————————

The ride home was surprisingly quiet actually. Colossus driving, with Kitty sitting shotgun in the front with him. Russell was in the second row seat behind Kitty, but the seat that normally would have been behind the driver had been taken out specifically with Colossus in mind to let his seat sit further back with his large height.

That just left the third row of three seats. With Peter still not in the best mood, you’d chosen to sit between him and Wade. But they’d mostly just been snacking on the cannolis the whole way home rather than saying or doing much of anything else.

You’d only eaten two in all, hungry but not wanting a stomach ache from the sweetness. You’d felt your own phone buzzing in your pocket most the way home too, but you refused to look at it yet. You could only imagine which friends were trying to call or text you about whatever was being said on TV and the internet now.

Kitty only told you that she’d messaged Xavier to tell him you were all on your way home. But you weren’t sure if she’d warned him about Deadpool and Russell coming with you. Or if she’d kept her phone out at all either afterward, afraid of what the Professor might say in response.

It could have been worse was what you kept thinking. It had been worse actually. Deadpool had once killed an Essex House staff member on live TV, while wearing an X-Men shirt, and with Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead also in camera view. But, given that that trouble had already come from him once, would the Professor be harder on you all this second time around? Would he still think you handled the situation as well as you could have or not?

By the time you felt the familiar turns up the long drive to the mansion, you realized that the period for anxiety was over. Whatever would be would now be.

Colossus had decided to park right in front the main entry doors instead of pulling down into the garage. Mostly just in case Wade’s welcome wasn’t a warm one. He could step right back outside if needed instead of already being in the depths of the compound.

Russell was actually the first one to speak though as you all climbed out the vehicle in front of the well manicured landscaping and dim accent lights.

“Holy shit, he is a rich son of a bitch.” The boy spoke, gaping a little at the sheer size of the mansion and the number of floors still above you.

“The cursing, Russell, please.” Colossus reminded. “There are younger children who live here.”

“Though they should be in bed,” Kitty responded, albeit sounding doubtful herself as she started up the entryway stairs.

They might normally be yes, but probably not if the rumor mill of tonight’s excitement was already burning through the place.

“Well I’ve actually never seen more than three people anytime I’ve been here. So there’s that,” Deadpool quipped.

“Yeah well, we were probably busy.” Peter retorted.

“Oh? Well yeah, maybe you were.” Wade replied, eyeing Peter. “Here’s a thought though, Peters. Maybe next time Ryan Murphy calls, just say N-O. No means no, right?”

“What-” Peter started to ask, but then thought better of it. It really wasn’t worth trying to piece together anything else Deadpool said into something more sensical right now.

As Kitty pushed open the doors and you all strode into the large foyer in front the main staircases, you weren’t sure what would be awaiting you. But the immediate, utterly ecstatic squeal that erupted from Deadpool next had all of you jumping before a gruff voice responded from up on the second floor landing.

“You have to be goddamn shitting me. You actually let that idiot follow you home?” Logan responded, the odd mix of disgust and annoyance so clear on his unshaven face.

“I thought you said no cursing here,” Russell complained.

“Logan is sometimes another matter...” Colossus attempted to answer with some neutrality, even as Deadpool was now bounding up the stairs towards the older man.

“Finally! Finally! I don’t even care if it’s just Tumblr and like two people and their FBI agents will see this! Beggars can’t be choosers! I missed you so much, papa bear!”

You stood there staring in complete disbelief, Deadpool looking as if he was actually going to try and hug the Wolverine.

You were likely all of the same mindset about the only way this could possibly play out, but Colossus was the only one to speak, pleading really. “Please, Logan! No blood on the inside of the house! You know how badly it would stain the floors!”

But Wolverine only growled, claws already aimed as Wade stopped just millimeters short, the metal tips now grazing the mercenary’s throat. “You heard him, Wade. Don’t give me a reason and you won’t be having to regrow limbs tonight.” Logan replied.

“You salty old bastard. We haven’t even seen each other in ages, you won’t return my calls, and this is the welcome I get?” Deadpool pouted.

“You’re bad luck walking, Wade. These kids don’t need you hanging around here for long.”

“Oh, and you’re such a tasteful role model. Grandpappy Wolverine teaching a class on cigar chain smoking, and stabbing your problems away this semester?”

“The fuck are you on about? How many people have you killed this month alone, Wade?”

“Twenty four and a half, thank you. And ask me how many of those never killed or raped someone themselves. How many the police never would have touched. What do you think I’ll say there?”

“Reason it all you want, bub. You’re just a wack job vigilante.”

“This could go on all night.” Kitty sighed. “Logan! Where is everyone else? We brought Russell with us, we need to take him to the Professor.”

Wolverine only softened slightly at Kitty’s voice, answering her. “Charles put in a curfew tonight, all students back to their rooms. Wade’s not allowed past the entrance, but the Professor is waiting for you in his study.”

“Discrimination.” Wade huffed, yet then posed in a mock seductive look. “But if you wanted me alone tough guy, all you’d have to do is ask.”

“Please do not make a mess, Logan. We will be back to collect him as soon as we can.” Colossus said with some concern, you all just starting towards the hallway that lead to Xavier’s office.

“No promises.” Logan called back before continuing, louder then so you could hear him even as you walked away. “And hey, Peter-”

“Yeah?” He answered back from your side, glancing over his shoulder at Logan.

“Your dad’s here, kid.”

Peter paused in his tracks, staring for a moment. You could see the emotions process through him before he took a deep breath. There was nothing more that any of you could do though. He just lifted a hand up in a wave of acknowledgement, finally starting to walk again. “Thanks for the warning,”

Even in all that had happened through the years though, going to see Xavier like this still brought back an odd sense of childhood. And that little feeling of dread to be honest. Not because you really thought he would be angry, but because you worried that you may have disappointed him. Which would have always been the worse of the two options in your own mind.

Colossus was the one to slide the ornate pocket doors open, you all trailing in behind him as you entered the study.

It was warm inside, the fireplace crackling and dancing. That fire was the only light besides a couple small table lamps and a TV now on mute, but still running the late night news.

You were but weren’t surprised to see Erik sitting there as well, a short glass of what looked like scotch in one hand. There was a chessboard as well, positioned between himself and Charles on a little table, the pieces clearly still in play.

As the TV flickered again though, you glanced back to it reflexively. You saw an exterior shot of the restaurant you’d been at only a short time earlier, now with police tape all around. It cut to a video of Colossus walking up to police cars with Giovanni in hand, but then just as quickly the flashing red and blue lights changed to the white flashes of cameras and yourself and Peter talking before the sudden kiss. You only looked to the floor in renewed embarrassment then, choosing not to read the ticker captions currently scrolling beneath the now looping video.

“Hey, Dad...” Peter said somewhat unsure, but still the first to speak. He’d shoved his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket now, as he often did when nervous. “Didn’t know you were in town.”

“Peter.” Erik answered plainly though, taking a sip of his drink before setting it back down. “I only arrived this afternoon. I had been hoping for a quiet evening.” He looked briefly towards the television, but then coolly back to Peter. “But here we are aren’t we?”

“Erik,” Xavier warned lightly though, no doubt sensing Peter tense further at the tone.

“They aren’t children anymore, Charles.” Erik responded sharply. “And it never should have been allowed to get to this point. I told you from the beginning that they should have worn masks, they should have been discreet. Trying to craft this foolhardy public image of the new X-Men as some celebrity clean up crew for humans’ mistakes, it’s making a mockery of us all.”

The exasperated breath that came out of the Professor next told you that this was far from the first time that this subject had come up as a point of contention between the two. But the rest of you were quite helpless whenever Erik and Charles would start to argue in front of you.

Xavier countered, “As I have also said before, Erik, we all knew there would be some negatives from moving more into the public eye with our team. But how can mutant kind ever be accepted for who we really are if we only kept slinking in the shadows for the rest of our lives? It’s no different than Raven showing herself on camera all those years ago. You know what an impact that made on the youth in our community then.”

“But the humans are fickle. The magazines and the talk shows only jest at you now. What happens when they turn on you? When my son’s face is only on a wanted list in a database, Charles? What then?”

The anger and protectiveness flaring up in Erik’s tone only made the room even more uncomfortable, yet you didn’t find yourself surprised. Peter’s relationship with his father would never be an easy one, but you knew in the end that Erik did feel a sense of responsibility towards his progeny. And hell have mercy on anyone who did ever truly harm Wanda, Peter, or Lorna and word of it get back to their father.

Charles remained patient though, likely understanding those paternal emotions all too well himself. The Professor treated you all as well as his own after all. “The ones that wish to harm us already knew who we were, Erik. They don’t need to pick up that gossip drivel to find us. We protect ourselves by staying together, as we always have. They want us, then they’ll have to face us all. And Lord knows even gods have tried.”

Erik frowned, and for a moment you wondered if Xavier was saying something more to him telepathically. Something to make him finally quiet or at least agree to postpone the argument’s continuation for later in private.

Regardless of whether your instincts were correct or not on that, their conversation did end abruptly then. Charles switched to a warmer, but still slightly tired tone as he looked back to the rest of you. “Well, I know you’re all ready for tonight to be over. I won’t keep you much longer. Kitty, if you could make sure that weapon you confiscated ends up locked in Hank’s lab tonight, we’ll see about it later. Given that those men would not need something so extravagant just to dispose of other humans, I’m certain it was developed or at least purchased with our kind in mind. We will learn what we can.”

She nodded in agreement before he then turned his attention to the, to this point, uncharacteristically silent Russell with a kind look. “And Russell, I appreciate you deciding to give us a second chance. You’re welcome to stay of course. Did you still wish to speak to me? I know it’s late. Don’t feel obligated to stay and talk if this is all a bit much right now. We can always go over more about the school in the morning.”

“Um...” The boy blinked, not quite ready it seemed for any of the focus to be back on him so soon. And it was only then that you realized it was Erik that Russell kept staring at as he tried to formulate a real response. Actually Erik and briefly back to Peter, that tell tale look on the boy’s face that you’d seen so many times before when people realized who Peter really was, who his father was. Russell was maybe even regretting picking on Peter earlier now.

Charles certainly hadn’t missed that though. Surely sensing all the boy’s thoughts and feelings now as he continued. “It’s alright, Russell. Yes, Magneto does stop in here from time to time. We’re old friends. Yet I hardly think you should be so concerned with him when you’ve already gotten on quite well with my stepbrother haven’t you?” Xavier was actually smiling then. “To get on the Juggernaut’s good side, if even briefly, is quite impressive I must say.”

That did seem to finally break the ice a little then as Russell looked back to Charles. “Yeah, I... I needed a prison friend. A big one.”

“He is that, certainly,” The Professor responded. “Yet to answer the other questions still running through your mind -and forgive me to read you- but of course you can absolutely train with us to better learn to control your fire powers if you’d like. And yes, you may also have a television in your room. I think that’s a reasonable request after living in less than desirable conditions with Wade for this long.”

“Yeah, there were rats and the old blind lady sells cocaine.” Russell answered so matter of factly that the rest of you, minus Charles who was evidently now fully aware of Russell’s recent memories, all just stared.

“Despite his, ah, unique flaws, I can say that Wade would never willingly let anything happen to you.” Xavier just continued. “But yes, it would likely be best to give you a bit more sanitary and less illegal living conditions. And of course this would all be voluntary, if you find you don’t like it here after all, you’re always free to go as well.”

“Cool. Yeah.” Russell agreed. Though not really sure what else to say.

“Wonderful,” Charles just looked back to Colossus and Kitty then. “Can you two please see Russell to one of the empty rooms so he may pick one out to sleep tonight? And please let Wade know of his decision to stay for now.”

Colossus spoke up though before they all walked out together, “And am I sending Wade home as well? I do not think he and Logan can be peaceable for a whole night in the same building.”

“Agreed. Like oil and water there. I would prefer not to have to repair cerebro again either, as we’d had to from his last stay with us.” Xavier looked apologetic though to Colossus. “Is it too much to ask that you offer him a ride back home tonight?”

But Russell just cut in before Colossus could respond. “Nah, Wade already called a cab to meet him back here before we left town. You can just dump him outside now. Let him be their problem.” But even Russell knew to elaborate a little. “And it’s not some random person he might scare off. It’s his friend Dopinder. But you might want to give him some money first. He never pays the guy. Wade doesn’t carry a wallet. Tightwad.”

Kitty sighed. “I’ll cover it. I have cash. Never got to eat or pay for our dinner after all.” She glanced to you and Peter briefly. “Maybe next weekend?”

“We can try,” You offered quietly.

She smiled, understanding that sentiment that you all might want to lay low for awhile after this fiasco of an evening. “I guess we’ll see how we feel. Night, guys.”

“Night.” You and Peter responded to her in unison.

When Kitty, Colossus, and Russell had left the room, you happened to glance back at the TV, though you were at least a little relieved to see the news had finally gone off and by the captions it was just some talk show host joking about whatever a bigger idiot politician had done now.

But Peter’s voice brought your attention back to him.

“Are we free to go too?” He asked cautiously, maybe even more uneasy now that it was just the four of you as he looked to his father and Charles.

The two older men exchanged a glance of their own as silence hung for a moment.

Erik sighed eventually though to break it. His voice serious, but lacking it’s usual coldness. “You can’t keep diving into everything headfirst, Peter. You’re going to get yourself killed.” He seemed to be studying his son’s face a moment. “And what are those bruises even from?”

“I, uh...fell down a flight of stairs.” Peter answered, taking a breath as if to steel himself for further scolding, obviously that admission only adding to his father’s point.

Yet you interjected before Erik could respond. Before you could help yourself, as it wasn’t fair for Peter to be singled out here. “I’m the one that told him to go to the basement.” Normally Scott was mission leader, or maybe Ororo. This wasn’t a role you were used to, but you’d take responsibility where it was due tonight. “I thought it would be safest for him to go first, to disarm them all, but-”

“But you sent him straight into an ambush.” Erik countered. And when his gaze shifted to you with those words, it was clear that even after this long, it still had an effect. An intimidation factor that you could only hope didn’t show through in your expression.

But it was Charles that came to your defense. “That’s a gross over simplification, Erik. Peter had already examined the area on his own accord moments before to no harm. There would have been no reason for them to think he couldn’t return to it.”

For Xavier to already know that level of detail, meant he’d already searched you and Peter’s minds tonight as well, just as he had Kitty about the gun. Which honestly was okay with you as it meant you wouldn’t have to really explain everything that had happened and risk making things sound even worse.

But Erik was still staring at you both, looking displeased.

Peter shifted, uncomfortable with the quiet. “Look, if you’re going to yell at me for what I did on TV, then just get it over with. It wasn’t (Y/N)’s fault. I was the one that made us stay as long as we did, and I was the one that got pissed off at what those guys were saying. It’s always like no one can believe we’re still together. Like I have to keep proving it.”

That admission actually did catch you off guard. Especially to be said here in front his father, and well in all honesty sort of stepfather that Charles was for all intents and purposes. You immediately felt you should say something, but were even further stunned when Erik beat you to it.

“Peter, for God’s sake. You may have problems, but I assure you that (Y/N) is not one of them. Quit being so dense, boy.”

You blinked, unsure if you’d actually just received a rare semi-compliment from Erik.

But Peter just rolled his eyes. “Thanks for the pep talk, Dad. Yes, I know that. I’m saying how do I make everyone else know that? Some fatherly wisdom would be great right now.”

Erik frowned, looking annoyed at Peter’s reaction. “I’ve told you before, I can’t teach you self-confidence, no one can. Though I’ve always been willing to fight for what I wanted. That’s a start.”

“Erik, no.” Charles interrupted. “Peter, we all question ourselves from time to time. But when it comes to relationships, nothing going on on the outside will matter as long as you focus on keeping things strong between the two of you. Weakness there is the only way those outside troubles can get in to break things down.”

“Oh typical, Charles. So it’s still turn the other cheek to everything else then? Pacifism is not how love is won.” Erik replied, now staring back at Xavier.

“Love is not a thing to be fought over, Erik, and neither is (Y/N). People are not trophies to be claimed.” The Professor responded, meeting Erik’s gaze easily.

“Okayyyy,” Peter said, glancing to you and the no doubt really uncomfortable expression on your face now. “I think we’re just going to go to bed now.” His voice was getting a little quicker as he touched your arm as if to usher you out with him. “We’ll be more careful next time, we learned our lesson, so sincerely sorry and humbled, good nigh-”

“Peter.” Erik called back though before you could both reach the doorway.

Peter looked back reluctantly, only to see Erik now holding up a phone.

“Do at least message your sisters tonight to tell them you’re alright. As refreshing as it is to be receiving so many calls from them this evening, it’s only you they wish to speak to.”

“Uh, sure,” Peter offered, a little surprised. “I haven’t even looked at my phone. I will. Night!”

“Good night.” You also managed, speaking back at least politely to the two men just before Peter hurried you out into the hallway.

——————————

You’d both chosen to take one of the other halls afterward, as to avoid the front foyer and any drama that may still be occurring there if Wade and Logan were still facing off. There was another set of stairs at the back of the house, and it’d been a real relief not to run into anyone else on the way as you took them up to your floor.

By the time you finally got to your bedroom, you didn’t bother to turn on the ceiling light, just switching on the lamp at your bedside end table as you sat down on the bed. You pulled off your shoes, and heard Peter’s jacket already hitting the floor before his own weight hit the bed, making you bounce slightly.

“Ugh,” He said, already barefoot and stretched out behind you laying on his back. “That was awkward right?”

“What part of the night specifically?” You questioned, throwing off your own coat into a then indiscernible pile in the darkness outside of the lamp light. Normally you were the one picking up after Peter, but you weren’t in the mood to hang up or fold anything tonight.

“Good point,” He conceded. “But I was mainly thinking of Dad and Charles. Sorry to drag you into that.”

Yeah, that had been pretty weird. “Well, Xavier was just trying to help. And I think your Dad was too...in his own way. I guess.” There wasn’t a whole lot you could add to that. Peter’s insecurities could flare up from time to time still, but he’d actually gotten a little better over the years. At some point he had finally realized you really were going to stick around. It wasn’t just pretty words and passing teenage hormones.

After you’d actually started rooming together officially, you knew there had even been some joking from your friends about Magneto one day becoming your father-in-law. But you tried not to humor any of that. You were in no hurry, and felt further commitment to that level would have to be Peter’s decision. It wouldn’t be fair to put him under that kind of pressure.

You knew he had reservations on the subject when none of his father’s marriages had ever worked out. He wouldn’t say it outright, but you were sure Peter felt there was still some sort of family curse there that he didn’t want to tempt fate with. As if making you his spouse would be the final straw and something would come to take all his happiness away.

You felt him moving a little then as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Alright, before I forget, group message to Wanda and Lorna...” But he paused, looking up at you with just a blank white screen on the phone. “What do you think I should tell them?”

“Peter, they’re your sisters.” You smiled, not sure why this would be a question to you. “Just say you’re fine, you’re back at the mansion, and you’re going to bed. You can always call them tomorrow.”

He made a face at that though, “What if I don’t want to call them tomorrow? They’re just going to lecture me. Oh, I know!” He smirked as if he’d thought of something clever, adding to whatever he was already typing. “Dad already fussed at me. So don’t worry about it. Wanda, tell mom the same thing. ❤️👍”

He turned the screen to show you. “Think that will work?”

“Genius.” You replied.

“Smart ass.” He grinned, but sent the message before quickly turning his phone back on silent and setting it on the other end table.

You took your own phone out your pocket, intentionally not reading the number of notifications left on the home screen as you also set it to the side before standing up to take your pants off.

You’d just slid them down, trying to step out of them when a sudden pinch to your backside almost had you stumble forward, one foot still stuck in a pants leg.

“Speaking of ass...” Peter teased, pulling his hand back before you could smack it.

“So the cannolis gave you a second wind, huh?” You turned, not surprised to see that devilish grin starting as he now looked you over while you next removed your shirt. You’d think he’d be used to this view by now.

“I was feeling hopeful, yeah,” he replied, though remaining where he was in the bed as your shirt joined your pants on the floor. “Of course I am still pretty tired,” He added, “Maybe you could help me out here?”

You raised one eyebrow as he motioned to the zipper of his jeans. Oh, so this was how it was going to be? He seemed so pleased with his idea though, you couldn’t help but be amused.

***smut starts here, scroll on to skip*** “So pitiful, my poor speedster.” You said, albeit smiling as you climbed into the bed. You straddled him gently, seeing that needful look already beginning to cloud his eyes as he still laid on his back beneath you.

You were tired yourself, and hungry still, but you’d survive until morning. This effort for some physical intimacy seemed worth it to at least end this bizarre night on a good note for the both of you.

And you knew you both wanted it. He might be making a play that he was going to make you do all the work right now, but you highly doubted he’d have the self control to not jump in once things actually got going.

You pushed his shirt up, running both your hands up the sides of his torso. Like anyone would expect for someone as fast as him, he was built lean, though there was sinew there. Just that bit of muscle, storing all that energy, ready to take off at a moment’s notice.

The room was cool. It was still winter and the high ceilings didn’t do much to keep heat near the floor. You knew your hands would be a little cold as well. So you willed just the slightest bit of your energy field from your palms, warming them as you stroked his chest. You could see the bit of bruising here and there from his earlier fall, but luckily nothing extreme.

He relaxed his head into the pillows behind him, clearly enjoying the feel even as you heard his breathing increase slightly. He liked to be petted, but you knew it would be too much of a tease for him if you focused above his waist for too much longer.

You left his shirt pushed up to bare his abdomen to you, even as your hands ran carefully back down, stopping at his belt. Never quite the typical guy when it came to fashion, it wasn’t a normal peg and hole type, but actually an old seatbelt buckle. You undid it with a click, pulling it out through the belt loops of his pants as he arched a little to take his weight off the back and fully free it.

Once that was out of the way, you unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans with little fanfare. His normally loose boxers were already a little tighter though you noticed.

He made a noise, shifting into the touch as you cupped him with your hand. You massaged the area through the fabric, feeling him gradually stiffen as you got a little more forceful.

By the time he was fully erect, it was all too simple to slip him through the now stretched open flap in the boxers.

You had been intending to stroke him now, but on a whim you decided to go another route. Something a little less predictable you hoped, but what you knew he would still like. You doubted you were all that good at it really, but he’d never complained before.

And you could tell he was surprised, you heard him take in a quick breath as you lowered your mouth down on him, sucking him as he spread open his legs for you. You couldn’t take him in too deep without gagging yourself, but you tried to make up for it by moving up and down gingerly as you used your tongue as well.

It must have been stimulating enough for him though as you felt his hand on the back of your head shortly after, and felt his hips starting to rock rhythmically against your mouth.

He gave a quiet moan, he was so very hard now, but you didn’t let up. You knew sometimes, especially if it’d been a while since you’d last had a chance to be intimate together, he may actually cum fairly quickly. But if he did, then he did. You weren’t worried about whether you got anything in return tonight. Truthfully, your heart was already pounding, the heat in you building, just because you knew he was so aroused.

It was always give and take, and there was no rule of whose turn it was at any given time.

His whole body stiffened a little and for a moment you thought that would be it. But his hand moved to your shoulder suddenly instead, pushing you back as you released him in response.

You pursed your lips as you looked back up at him, that little bit of irritation still felt on them of where they’d dragged against him.

He was already sitting up though, pulling his shirt off completely before he tossed it off the bed. “Come on, babe, clothes off please.” He breathed, his silver hair falling into his dark eyes as you moved off of him and he laid back again just long enough that he could pull off his jeans and work his erection free from his boxers before they ended up cast out into the darkness as well.

While you’d been watching him, you’d also been unhooking your bra as requested, tossing that away. Which left only your underwear before you’d slid it down your legs, flicking it off too once it’d only been left swinging from one foot. He closed the small distance between you so fast then, you were sure he’d actually just used his powers before you felt his lips against yours. Desperate almost, as his tongue pressed through immediately afterward.

You shivered, not expecting the feel of his fingers against your entrance almost simultaneously. Just two of them, moving methodically against you. The room felt far from cold now. But you were just kissing him equally as hard now as he started to push his fingers in further, testing your readiness.

By the time you trembled again from his probing, you knew you were fully wet enough. It was a mutual realization evidently as he broke the kiss, urging you to turn so your back was facing him as he moved behind you on the bed.

You understood what he wanted as he kneeled behind you. You let yourself lean down onto your elbows in the pillows, but also on your knees in the back as you felt him grab your hips from behind. You arched your back, curving your back downward to help angle yourself into him as you felt his tip pressing into you.

As wet as you were now, he only had to try a couple times before he was able to slide fully in. To the hilt so to speak as you felt his torso now pressed flush against you. Already that slight sheen of sweat was starting where your skin touched together as he began to thrust.

The bed was creaking, and you bit back a moan of your own, never quite sure how thick the walls really were in this house. It was kind of an unspoken thing that as long as precautions were taken, and the others in the house didn’t have to hear or see anything you did in the privacy of your own room, then no one would care if people coupled up. For the two of you, precautions only meant a birth control pill, not worrying about condoms any longer after several years of monogamy.

His thrusts were getting even more uneven though, which told you he was close to orgasm. But you couldn’t help but push back against him yourself, panting a little as you felt him grab and squeeze one of your breasts. He was supporting himself with his other arm as he leaned forward suddenly, still inside you as he nipped you lightly on one shoulder, then kissing the same spot before he breathed in your ear.

“How do you always feel so good?” He murmured.

As he let go of your breast, you felt his hand go back between your legs. Even though he was still buried fully in you, his fingers went back to teasing the outside. The over stimulation left you shuddering, and you knew he was trying to get you to orgasm first.

His fingers just kept moving as he started to thrust again. You loved that feeling of fullness, when he was all the way inside, but it was the added teasing of his fingers where you were most sensitive that finally sent you over the edge. Your muscles inside spasming around him then as that unmistakable burst of euphoria went through you, leaving every piece of you trembling.

He clearly felt your orgasm, only moving both hands back to your hips then. Pulling you back against him as he thrust roughly several more times, enough to get his own release as you felt his erection pulse in its own right, knowing he had then let go inside you as you felt that warmth already dribbling back out onto the bedsheets.

Even though you’d started the foreplay, he’d done most the work for the finish. Yet you still felt spent now, only rolling onto your back after he pulled out, trying not to let too much of his seed run back out of you and onto the bed.

He was still breathing a little unevenly as he left the bed only long enough to go grab a clean hand towel from the bathroom. One of those pluses of having had the mansion rebuilt back then was that so many more of the rooms now had their own bathrooms. And after he’d wiped the residue off of himself, he handed you the towel. You dabbed up the small spot on the bed, before wiping off the remainder from your skin as well, then tossing the towel unceremoniously onto the floor with everything else.

Peter turned off the end table lamp before climbing back into the bed beside you in the darkness. The only light then coming from the moon and starlight through the thin curtains at the windows.

You were both still naked, and a little bit hot as you only pulled the covers as high as your waists, knowing the room’s cool air would chill you quickly enough now that no more physical exertion was taking place.

Hot or not though, his arms went around you as he then pulled you into a spooning position in the darkness. You actually felt that he was still about half hard too as it touched against your backside again, you now both laying on your sides with your back to his chest.

***sex over, you’re safe to start reading again*** “That almost made up for this entire night,” He joked quietly, kissing the back of your neck a couple times before you felt him smile against your skin. He moved one of his hands to trail it lightly over your hip, the sensation tickling you slightly as he spoke again. His voice was soft, a true contentment in his tone. “Love you.”

That wasn’t a phrase he said often. But the both of you seemed to save the word as to never water it down. When it was said, it made it really mean something more.

You reached down for his hand that’d been playing with your hip, grasping it warmly and weaving your fingers between his. “I love you.” You said simply, no need to elaborate on what was just a fact.

He squeezed your hand a little harder, but said nothing more, you both just enjoying the touch and comfort of each other’s presence.

You moved your head a little more into the pillows, getting just right as you closed your eyes.

——————————

Your dreams faded in and out, nothing you could remember in detail though as the sunlight on your face now had you squinting. You thought of just pulling the blanket back over your head, but your brain started to register the smell of food as well. Bacon specifically as you lifted your head a little, trying to focus.

“It lives!” Peter joked from beside you, sitting cross legged on top the blankets and just in his boxers again. Two plates of food sat in front of him, the source of the smell you realized as you sat up a little, pulling the sheet up enough to cover your bare chest in the cool room.

Very rarely did he ever wake before you, and your still half asleep stare of confusion only made him smirk a little.

“I had to pee.” He said through a mouthful of food, a sausage biscuit with a large bite already taken out of it in one hand, and a video game controller pressed down into the bed with the other. His hand with the controller was blurring slightly as he moved it just fast enough to work the joy stick and buttons simultaneously. “Then I remembered they released that new DLC last night. Had to try it out. I turned the volume down though. Considerate right?”

And it was indeed silent, not the usual grunts and blasts and screams from that gory fighting game he loved so much. His character was currently comboing another into oblivion on the small TV across from the end of your bed.

Your lack of any real dinner the night before had you focusing back to the food in front of you though.

“Go on,” Peter encouraged. “I knew you’d be hungry. It’s not all for me.”

Normally you were against eating in bed, just from the crumbs and general mess it could make. You’d had the misfortune to find the sticky remnants of Twinkies and the like from Peter’s late and early snacking many times.

Yet even as you picked up one of the amazing looking sausage and egg biscuits for yourself, you wondered if anyone else was now going without. Was it stolen goods? “Where...did this come from?” You asked, voice still a little hoarse from just waking, even as you bit down hungrily.

But the implication of your question didn’t even faze him. “Oh there was plenty. Raven told Hank he didn’t know how to cook, so guess who wins? Us when he made three damn trays of these things.”

“Sounds like she had a plan.” You responded, also grabbing a couple pieces of bacon now.

“Totally.” He agreed. “And orange juice is on the end table, babe.”

You glanced to your side, indeed just noticing the glass beside you then. “Well, you’ve been busy.” But your attention eventually drifted back to him only sitting there in his boxers after you’d taken a few sips of juice. “Did anyone even see you?”

“Nah. Maybe they felt an errant breeze or two.” But he was grinning in a way that still gave you pause.

You watched him a little while longer, only feeling more and more sure before you finally offered out the accusation. “No. You did something. Something else...”

He’d already emptied his plate now, both hands on the video game controller then as he seemed to put his focus solely back to the TV screen. Intentionally of course before he grabbed the nearby remote to start turning the volume back up.

“Peter.” You spoke anyway, knowing full well he could still hear you. “Did we not just scrape by last night without any big consequences? You’re going to put that goodwill to the test already this morning?”

“It’ll be fine.” He answered. “It’s nothing.”

Your eyebrows raised a little. His ‘fine’ and yours could sometimes be completely different things. You sighed, going back to eating the food in front of you as Peter’s character liberated the head off another in a ridiculous fountain of CGI blood.

If you could just finish your breakfast before the next possible calamity-

The bedroom door absolutely rattled in its frame with the pounding on it that almost had you spilling the juice in the bed. By the time your annoyed look moved to the spot Peter had just been, the video game was already paused. Only yourself now alone with whoever was on the other side of that door.

“Just say I’m not here!”

You couldn’t even tell where the whisper came from. Peter either hiding in the closet or maybe the bathroom, they were too near each other to tell.

“I’m not even dressed!” You retorted just to him, quite literally naked as you tried to disentangle yourself from the blankets without dumping your food plate, while simultaneously setting the glass of juice back onto the end table.

Peter said nothing more, so you could only call out that you were coming as you anxiously tried to find some of your clothes from the night before. You were able to find your underwear, and the um, incriminating towel, but that was about it. Sure it’d been dark, but how on Earth anything else could have gotten much farther or under something so quickly was beyond you. You kicked the towel under the bed, and you just had to settle for Peter’s t-shirt crumpled in your path as you grabbed it up and yanked it over your head, hurrying for the door.

You still tried to tug the shirt down as far as you could though, at least covering your panties and butt you hoped before you finally pulled the door open. Pantsless, barefoot, and probably with bedhair as you stared up into the glowing red eyes of a very irritated looking, and entirely shirtless Remy LeBeau.

His expression softened just slightly at the sight of you, his lips curling into a handsome smile. But one that didn’t quite reach those crimson eyes. “Mornin’, cher...so sorry to intrude, but I need to have a few words with that boy toy of yours.”

Yet you were staring still, taking time to process the sight before you. There was black...large black streaks all across his face. It circled his eyes in a cartoon like representation of glasses. Though he already had some stubble on his face, the streaks condensed around his mouth as well, like the upturned mustache and goatee of an old timey villain. As if he should be going to tie up some poor girl to train tracks somewhere.

“Oh my God,” you breathed. Permanent marker, seriously? How old were all of you again? “Remy, I’m sorry.” You thought about saying something about how Peter had let those paparazzi get under his skin last night. But it wouldn’t matter. Not if none of these boys were in the mood to be reasonable right now.

“You know you’re not going to catch him.” Is what you finally said. “Please don’t blow up my bedroom trying.”

“And he ain’t worth my chasin’, petite. I just want to talk,” Remy insisted though, voice as smooth as you’d ever heard it as he leaned against your doorframe in only a pair of pajama pants.

But the few playing cards now flitting between his fingers told you otherwise on his supposed peaceful intentions. Yet when he saw you look down at them, another one appeared seemingly from nowhere in his other hand.

He offered it to you, “But if he isn’t man enough to show himself, at least I get the pleasure of your company, non?”

The card was the king of hearts of course as he palmed it into your hand before you could think to stop him. But you knew it wouldn’t be charged if he was handing it to you like that. You trusted him at least that much.

Yet you were quite sure he was still only trying to lure Peter out by audibly flirting with you now. And sadly, it would probably work. “Remy, can you two just save it for the danger room?” You tried again. “It’s too early, really. I was just trying to eat breakfast.”

“Well, seeing as how you’ve been ditched, I don’t see why someone like you should have to eat all alone.” He answered effortlessly, just strolling past you further into the bedroom as if there was no awkwardness in this at all.

In a moment of panic you wondered if it’d be best to just call for backup. Your cell phone wasn’t very far. Was everyone awake already? What if you just called Rogue? That’d be the most straight forward right? Oh, but you could imagine that conversation. Hey girl, come get your man out of my bedroom please? Yet she totally would. He’d be as helpless as a toddler if she decided she was dragging him out.

“You know,” Remy said, considering a little as he palmed one of the uneaten biscuits right off the tray like it was a bauble to steal. “I did think we looked good together in those pictures they printed from the beach. It’s only natural you know. When two people have chemistry, everybody can see it.”

And that was it, the final straw. You didn’t even know why you still jumped when the bathroom door flung all the way open. The window opened too, a couple cards Remy had already thrown then exploding out there harmlessly like little fireworks as Peter had redirected them outside.

Your bedsheet seemed to have a mind of its own as it ripped off the bed and tied around Gambit as well, pinning his arms to his sides as he was forced to then kneel in front of you.

Peter reappeared at your side, looking down at his handiwork as he scowled at the other man. It was a rare expression on Peter’s face, but a little more jarring for that reason.

“Apologize to (Y/N).” Peter demanded. “Or you’re going out the window next.”

But you knew Remy’s wounded pride meant there would be no such possibility of deescalation now. They were going to have to be physically separated and given a cool off period no matter what. As you considered whether to actually put a shield around one or both of them to essentially begin preparations for mutant time out, Remy was already countering back at Peter, a mocking tone rolling off his tongue.

“Alright. I’m sorry, (Y/N). I’m sorry that you got saddled with a jealous little boy who goes after rivals in their sleep rather than face them like a man. And then just hides behind that same woman he thinks they’re going to take from him, yeah?”

Oh for God’s sake! You dropped the card Remy had given you, that you’d for some reason still been holding. You powered up, trying to catch both of the guys in two of your force fields, Peter had already been in movement though. In actuality you’d only ended up shielding Remy just before Peter had kicked the field, looking as if the hit had been intended for the Cajun’s chest.

“Don’t protect him!” Peter looked to you in surprise.

“I’m protecting both of you!” You responded, then glowing white and hovering now several feet off the floor in your annoyance.

“Kinky.” A new voice spoke, followed by a sing song voice that unfortunately you did now recognize as Deadpool continued. “I see London, I see France, I see (Y/N)’s underpants!”

With your energy humming around you, Peter’s shirt you were wearing was now billowing up a little you realized. Indeed giving a full view to all those below you. You dropped back to the floor immediately, but didn’t power down, keeping the field around Remy as you turned to look at the several people now standing in your doorway.

“You know, this is exactly how those rumors start,” Ellie said in her usual dry tone, taking in the truly bizarre scene of the three of you. “Putting on some clothes might be a good first step. Or you know, at least closing the door.”

The girl otherwise known as Negasonic Teenage Warhead was never one to mince words, even to you all, her sort of superiors. Her girlfriend Yukio only stood beside her, smiling a bit sheepishly.

“Yeah, don’t mind us you little OT3, I just came back to bring Russel his stuff.” He motioned to the boy, who was now also staring at you all. “And your boss Charlie X said I had to have an escort, so I got my old buddies here Nega-angst and Yukio-chan. Oh and-”

Deadpool suddenly grabbed another man who had been standing behind them, bringing him to the front. “This is my all time best buddy Dopinder, he wanted a tour of mutant Hogwarts as well.”

“Hello.” The young man waved a bit shyly. “It is an honor to meet more of DP’s superhero allies.”

“Hey.” Peter said oddly to them after a moment, then looking back to you again. The randomness seemed to have snapped him out of his fixation on getting even with Remy at least for the moment. It now looked like he was waiting for guidance from you on what to do next.

You heard an audible sigh from Remy then as he spoke up. “I rather not destroy your sheets, cher. Truce for today?”

You glanced back to Peter first though before letting down the shield. Making sure he’d agree to untie him. Peter looked reluctant still, but eventually nodded.

And with that you powered down, your field around Remy disappearing as all the energy faded back inside you. In another instant he was completely untied, the sheet semi neatly back on your bed then. You knew some of the food had to have gone flying wherever when Peter had ripped off the bedsheet earlier in their scuffle. But you didn’t really care right now.

“Woah, woah. Is that the new MK game?” Wade just questioned suddenly, then seemingly oblivious to all else as he strode into your room as well.

Why no one had any boundaries today, you had no idea.

“Wait, we get video games too?” Russell also sounded impressed, just following.

“Some of us,” Ellie replied though, giving Peter a skeptical look. “That one might have had a five finger discount.”

Peter huffed at her, non committal on the truth of that statement though, “It’s the new one, yeah. The new DLC just added more characters too.”

You didn’t even care anymore honestly as Wade pulled off his mask and hopped immediately onto your and Peter’s bed, grabbing a controller. “Dibs on Johnny Cage, mother fuckers. Let daddy show you how it’s done.”

“Hey, I want to be Scorpion!” Russell replied, actually sounding like the fourteen year old he really was for once.

And you saw Peter was already digging out another controller from his gaming pile as he scoffed at them both. “Man, you can try. I’ll wipe the floor with you and buzzcut you down to bloody stumps with Kung Lao.”

“Dopinder, google Johnny Cage combos, stat!” Deadpool requested as his friend hurried in, dutifully sitting on the floor and pulling out a cell phone to do just that.

Remy was actually the only male in the room to not be sucked in as he gave you a little look while walking back out. “Later, petite. Sorry for real about the fuss. You know he just irks me.” He leaned in a little closer just to you though. “And I know you’re faithful. He just needs to leave me out of it. Quit readin’ dem damn gossip magazines, yeah?”

“Yes.” You agreed with a smile. A little optimism returning that maybe the two of them could be reasoned with after all. “See ya, Remy.”

He nodded, winking at both Ellie and Yukio as well before he slipped past them and out down the hall. Yukio giggled, but Ellie only rolled her eyes.

“Well, if you put some pants on, maybe there’s still some breakfast left down there. Want to go?” Ellie asked you, crossing her arms. She smirked then though, the guys now commentating and mocking one another like there was some big sporting match going on just a few feet from you. “Let Wade be Peter’s problem for a while, I think you’ve earned it.”

“Sounds like a plan.” You agreed without much hesitation. If Peter needed you, it’s not like it’d even take him two seconds to find you, even with the size of this house.

You did see him glance back ever so briefly as you dug some sweatpants out your dresser drawer and pulled them on though. You made an eating gesture and he nodded, understanding where you were going.

He also made a motion like drinking and you knew that meant he wanted you to bring him back some soda. The more sugar the better for him.

As you walked back downstairs with Ellie and Yukio, Ellie chuckled to herself a little. “You know Wade’s going to think Peter is his bff now. Better buckle up for that ride. Colossus can probably give you some pointers.”

You sighed, looking at the younger two girls. “We’ve survived everything that’s been thrown at us to this point. Could always be worse.”

“Oh yeah, it’ll get worse.” Ellie answered.

Yukio nodded, yet still smiling. “Wade is very special. And deadly.”

“Like a contagion,” Ellie added.

It still didn’t matter though. New, strange friends, or old sometimes combative friends. Gossip and rumors, or anything else. In the end you had to agree with Xavier as you so often usually did. As long as you and Peter kept strong together, none of that outside noise could ever tear you down. You had each other and that was all you needed.

————————

End. Thanks for reading! Art by NACCHAN96.

[restapesta]

They were sitting in their car in the middle of an empty McDonald's parking lot. It was three in the morning, star-lit darkness, the world around them only lit up by the white light of the always-opened drive-through.

It had been a craving that brought them here. Ian waking up for a midnight snack, realizing that Mickey was quite awake too, unable to truly rest until he knew his husband was near, with him. He had been standing in front of the fridge inside their scarcely illuminated kitchen, with Mickey sitting on the kitchen counter, legs criss-crossed watching him. Ian had been contemplating what would be best suited to satiate his hunger, besides the man licking strawberry yogurt clean off the spoon.

A light bulb had lit up above his head.

"Get ready."

"What?"

He threw his hoodie Mickey's way. It was big on Ian most of the time, but it was good enough to keep a person warm. "Trust me, Mick."

Mickey placed the gray sweatshirt over his head, pulling it over his torso until he was engulfed in it. Ian rummaged slowly around for their phones, wallets, and keys, searching for them in the dark. His eyes had accommodated to it, and the moonlight filtering in through the windows helped.

"Where are we going?"

"You look great in my clothes, you know. And, you'll see."

He grasped Mickey by the hand, their fingers locked together in a soft embrace, feeling the warmth of each other's skin. Mickey didn't resist for a moment, trusting Ian with his entire life, following after him like a moth to a flame. The only sound echoing throughout the silent apartment had been the turning of the key inside their lock, and later on the slight thudding of quiet steps outside in the hall before their door.

First they got inside their car, both Mickey and Ian staying silent as the redhead drove through the Westside streets—empty and calm. They were enjoying the peace, the clock on their dashboard showing 02:47, and their bodies were still touching, Ian's palm resting flat against Mickey's pajama-bottom-covered thigh, the ones he felt no need to change out of. Ian was in his too, checkered and amusing, reminding Mickey of a grandpa. It was ten minutes before the logo came into view, large and inviting.

Mickey's stomach rumbled unwittingly as he glanced at his husband, noting the twinkle in his eye. He himself was draped in a thick black sweatshirt, the hood obnoxiously pulled over his head, wisps of hair poking out, flaming red.

"Really?" Mickey asked, a slight flutter in his stomach at the image of it all.

"Open 24/7."

"That's your response?"

"Come on, baby, you're just hangry. Let's get some food in ya'."

Mickey couldn't argue.

Now they were in the car, stuffing their faces with hamburgers and fries, downing them with Coke like madmen—something about late nights made them starved—talking amongst one another with mouths filled with food. With anybody else, it probably would've been disgusting and unattractive.

But not with them. Never with them.

They were playing a game.

Twenty questions that were turning into thirty, all asked with no clear goal in mind, simply the first thing to pop into either one of their heads, out of their mouths only for them to hear.

"Have you ever thought about playing the ?"

"You know I play guitar."

"Do you want a guitar for your birthday?"

"It's my turn to ask the question."

"'kay. Ask."

"How old are those tiny as fuck briefs you have hidden in our dresser and why the fuck do you never wear them?"

"Those are two questions."

"You're blushing."

"'m not."

"Answer it, bitch."

"Just so you know, those briefs are brand new and they fucking fit amazing."

"Why was I then denied the pleasure?"

"Mick—"

"As soon as we get home, you're putting them on."

"Fine."

"You're gonna try them then too."

"Why?"

"Your ass. Have you seen your fucking ass?"

Mickey grinned.

They lapsed into silence as they slurped on the last few sips of their Cokes, plastic squeaking in their hands.

Ian finished his drink with a loud sigh, discarding the cup with the rest of the trash that was sitting between them. Mickey followed suit. They were stuffed now and slightly sleepy, drowsiness appearing in their eyes.

Mickey watched as Ian leaned back in his seat. They had reclined them all the way, so Ian was practically laying in it, long legs sprawled out underneath the console. He placed his hands across his stomach, palms across one another.

"What was the best day of your life?" He asked like the sap he was.

Mickey smiled at the question, teasing, "It's my turn."

"Mickey."

"Okay, fine," He chuckled, not wanting to play that specific game of pull and tug, content with the peacefulness of it all. "Let me think about it."

First kiss. Engagement. Wedding. Anniversary. Too many moments to pick from, each stained with a problem they had faced and overcame, beautiful in their own fucked up ways.

He nibbled on his lower lip as he recalled a memory of compete and utter happiness. No problems, no worries, no sadness. It dawned on him, the sensation like drinking water after days of dehydration.

"Remember that trip to Oklahoma?"

A smile graced Ian's features, his eyes briefly closing as he seemed to recall the day. "Don't think I could forget."

"We spent a whole day at that fair. Rented out a room at some shitty motel. From morning till night we went on every single ride possible. Literally saw every attraction there." He was getting lost in the memory, chest swelling with happiness. "Kissed on top of the Ferris wheel at midnight when it was just about to close, like fucking dorks."

He turned around to glance at Ian. He was looking straight at him, the small upturn of his lips reading clear in his eyes, gazing at Mickey like he was everything to him in this entire world.

Whispering, Mickey said, "That was the best day of my life."

Ian grabbed a hold of his hand slowly, delicately, placing it in his lap, the action making warmth heat Mickey's cheeks. Mickey leaned against his own seat, mirroring his husband, eyes on him all the way.

"The best day of my life was the 21st of June, 2021," Ian said longingly as if he was reading the beginning of some old fairytale-type story.

Mickey couldn't help the laugh that escaped him at Ian's sweet earnestness. "You know the date?"

Ian shot him a look, no bite in it whatsoever. "Allow me to tell the story, please?"

Mickey bit his lip to stop smiling. "Okay, okay, you're allowed."

Ian smacked lightly at Mickey's chest, not moving an inch, still slumped in his seat lazily.

"That night I had a dream," He began. "It wasn't even like a dream. More like a fucking vision—and I know how weird that sounds, trust me. But it was literally like a vision, clear and vivid and everything.

"Anyways, the dream—or vision, whatever—was of you and me, sitting in two lawn chairs, staring out into the world. But the thing is, we were older. Like, ninety-year-old old. We were just staring ahead. Then at each other. The way we looked at each other is how we look at each other now—filled with a bunch of love and fondness. It was just the two of us, together, old and gray."

Ian stopped and took a deep breath, leaning forward in his seat, locking eyes with Mickey who was listening carefully. Mickey straightened himself as well, and they were just sitting in their car, gazing softly at one another as Ian told the story, the remnants of their endeavor resting between them.

"So," He continued. "On the 21st of June, 2021, I woke up and all I could think about was that dream. It was like—like on a fucking loop inside my head, and each time I even glanced at you, I just saw the two of us, old and together.

"And I realized, as fucking weird as it sounds, that it was us. I swear Mick, it was you and me, years from now, just sitting in fucking lawn chairs, staring out into the world. Into each other's eyes." His eyes shone. "And all throughout that day, I knew that one day, we'd get there. That you and I would spend the rest of our lives together until we were wrinkly and gray and doing nothing but being together. Each time I even saw you from the cone of my eye, grumpy and frowning at whatever, I was so happy because I would get to spend the rest of my life with you.

"That, until the day I died, I would have you as my partner. My husband. My best friend. The love of my fucking life; by my side until there is nothing left in the world to do but sit by each other and just watch as time goes by.

"Just you and me, Mick. Until the end."

Mickey watched him inhale deeply.

"Best day of my fucking life, and I get to live it forever."

A tear slipped out of Mickey's eye. He felt it on his cheek, rolling down, hot against the already warm skin, yet all he could see was Ian. Ian with the shimmering orbs and that look in his eye like he was staring at everything he needed in life.

Mickey pulled his hand out of Ian's from where it was resting in his lap, then raised them to palm Ian's cheeks, pulling him in for a deep kiss. Lips moving together in the dark, serendipitous in all ways, the vulnerability for once a blessing instead of a curse.

"You never told me that story," He whispered against Ian's lips.

"It just felt right for me to know. Maybe we were just both waiting for this moment, unknowingly."

Another tear, filled with so much.

"We both live the best day of our life like that, Ian. Every single day."

Ian nodded, smiling against Mickey's lips. "I know, my love. I know."

They were sitting in their car in the middle of an empty McDonald's parking lot. It was four in the morning, star-lit darkness, the world around lit up by only them, the love palpable like a glow, allowing them to see clearly; see all the things that were important to them.

A person needed the match to their gasoline so they could light the fire that would burn and simmer. A person, too, needed the cord to their plug that would alight the darkness of the inside of their chest.

Because one would be lost without the glow in the dark. Or at least not be able to truly see.

[somanyerikas]

Nostalgia sells - or does it? About BBC’s rehiring of a previous showrunner for Doctor Who as a marketing strategy

All, right, this is the one where I deal with my issues about RTD’s rehiring from the standpoint of BBC’s business strategy . Brace for passive agression, swearwords, brief history of british television and numbers. So, so many numbers.

Allright, so I already wrote a post about my problem with RTD’s (re)hire from the creative standpoint (it’s here in case you’re interested), but hey, I can bitch about it all I want, but we all know what caused the BBC to make this decision, right? You’ve heard about it for sure. The Dropping Ratings. You’ve read about it on so many posts, lots of them probably oh-so-gladly conflating this fact with their own opinion about the deteriorating quality of the show. (Don’t worry, we’ll get to that.) So Obviously the execs at the Big BBC Quarters needed to do something about it, and what better way to go than rehire a guy who’s run at Doctor Who is a warm childhood memory for so many in it’s fanbase? After all, it’s what we’re seeing nowadays: from Star Wars return to wave of 80′s nostalgia to every old blockbuster star doing a comeback, there is but a single conclusion - nostalgia sells.

Or does it?

Part One: Moving with the change; or very much refusing to.

Let’s start this off with some facts about the ratings for Doctor Who. (Well, I warned you there’s gonna be numbers, didn’t I. Stick with me, I’m going somewhere with this I promise.) In it’s beginnings, in the sixties and seventies , the series flown high, averaging a viewership from 8 up to 10 million viewers per season. Collin Baker’s series 17 brought in a record of 11.21 milion viewer asses in front of a good ol’ TV screen, real champagne opener here. But, as it happens, things were downhill from here. During the eighties, the rating started dropping steadily, reaching an all-time low of 4.15 milion couch-warming bottoms in 1989, the last season of the classic era. 

Years passed, 16 of those years to be exact, and here comes our saviour RTD. Under his wings, the revived series premiered, bringing in over 10 milion viewers to the premiere episode of season 1, Rose. A viewership this high did not last for long, but still, RTD’s seasons averaged between 7 and 8 milion viewers per season, which seemed pretty respectable. But then, as the story likes to repeat itself, not unlike the bbc execs just did, along came the decline again. Ever since 2010, the ratings began steadily dropping again, from 7.95 in 2010 to 5.46 in 2017. Then DW experienced an unexpected peak in 2018 with the premiere of Jodie Whittaker’s first season, which averaged 7.96 viewing asses, but then continued the dropping trend on the next season, averaging 5.40 viewing butts.

So what went wrong?

You see, part of the reason that Doctor Who was bringing in such great viewership numbers in the 60′s and 70′s, was that, to put it simply, BBC did not have much competition. Or, to be exact, only had one competitor. ITV was literally founded in order to break BBC’s monopoly over British television. But in the 80′s, with the launch of Channel 4 and Sky, the british viewers had more and more options to choose from. So logically speaking, they no longer had to watch BBC’s programming just because there was nothing else on. There was more and more new programes to boredom-watch. And here’s something y’all need to know about the tv industry: the boredom-watchers, the casuals? That’s the most important demographic. As hard as it might be to swallow, us hardcore fans, forum dwellers and Ao3 gremlins, we’re not as big of a group as we’d like to think. Loving fans are important to the tv execs as providers of word-of-mouth advertisment, but the real numbers come from the casual, everyday viewer who will just put on the next episode cause the other one was kinda fun I guess. Or more fun than the other options, anyway.

And this is why, by the way, when someone is conflating low viewership with the show Dissapointing The Fans, they’re full of shit. I’m sorry, but we’re really not that much of a force here, definitely not enough to make such a big impact on the numbers. Another factor, that some of you probably noticed already, is that the numbers I’m quoting are from british tv only, while the online fandom is very much international, so our opinions matter even less to the british execs, I’m sorry again, hard pill to swallow I know, but true nonetheless.

But I digress. So, to sum up the previous paragraph, Doctor Who’s viewership decline in the 80′s was the effect of the changing landscape of the TV industry, with which the BBC struggled to come to terms with.

Sound familiar?

Let’s move on to the 2010′s, shall we?

2010 was is actually a good marker of a year to choose, because it marks one important thing that begun a big change in the industry. This was the year in which Netflix expanded their services overseas, from being a DVD rental company to providing VOD services. Over the next decade streaming services grew in importance, from being an add-on to your cable TV that you didn’t really want but they were throwing it in for cheap, to very much self-sustainable media services you might very well buy instead of buying the cable. And if you look at the numbers for Doctor Who viewership declining over the last 10 years, that’s precisely what’s been happening. It’s not that people don’t want to watch Doctor Who on tv, they don’t want to watch tv in general. Do you know what was the most popular channel in Britain this year? Can you guess? Fucking Netflix that’s what. It’s just slowly-yet-steadily ceasing to be the way we use home entertainment anymore. Again, not much to do with the audience approval, because for that matter, let’s see about the specific episodes that saw the spikes in viewership. 

Rose, which i mentioned at the start of it, was for the longest time the unquestionable queen when it comes to viewership, at 10.81 milion. The next episode, The End of the World, pulled in 7.97 - almost 3 millions worth of lost viewer-butts in one week? Is it because it was so much worse than it’s predecessor? No, it simply did not have the smell of Newness, the Event You Must See, and as such brought forth less of the casual viewers who were simply curious about The New Thing. The next season followed the similar formula, peaking at the premiere, when the marketing was at it’s strongest, going down during the season, sometimes rising slightly for the finale, sometimes not. The most popular episodes are, of course, the specials - yet again, the vibe of The Event To Be Seen worked here, but one more thing working to their advantage is they often aired in spaces between seasons, serving as both a long-waited Crumbs of Content for the fans, and the basically stand-alones for the casuals. Do you know what the single most watched episode of revived DW is? No, it’s not Tennant’s goodbye with the role (yeah I know, I thought it had to be that as well). It was Voyage of the Damned, between seasons 3 and 4. The perfect standalone for the casual watcher. And last but not least, you know one more special feature that brought, maybe not as much, but definitely more than expected? The 1996 movie Doctor Who, with 9.08 million. Again, a perfect standalone.

But the standalones aren’t the only way to grab the viewership. The currently-highest viewing non-special episode of DW? The Woman Who Fell to Earth, Jodie Whittaker’s introduction. In 2018 no less, in the year when the streaming was the ruler supreme, this episode brought a whooping 10.96 million buts to the good ol’ TV again. Let me reiterate: this episode brought in more viewers than Rose did in 2005, while having WAY more competition and way less favorable circumstances of release that RTD’s debiut did. Not only that, it managed to bring on some numbers for the entire season as well, not as good of course as the premiere (because again, the Event vibes faded), but still brought a better average than the last six seasons did. (Again, let me reiterate: more than the last SIX seasons. More viewership than any series since 2010, since the Streaming Wars.) So clearly, this must be the way, right? Catering to this Weird New Trend, that saw directors notice there do in fact exist other actors than white men, that surely brought in some profit, even Marvel does it now, right? Out with the old, in with the new!

Part 2 The Deceitful Charm of Nostalgia

Well, it turns out the whole Doing New Things deal didn’t work out that well after all, now did it? The second season penned by Chibbnal averaged 5.40 milion, that’s 2.5 million drop from the previous one! It must mean it didn’t work, right? Well, yes and no. As much as the refreshment of the formula as simple as Let’s Put A Woman In It absolutely worked for one season, it very visibly did not hold up for longer. An Event-Episode is something that can still happen on TV, Event-Series? That’s pretty much reserved for streaming now, if you think about it, and it’s honestly kind of a miracle that Series 11 did as well as it had. Two consecutive Event-Series on network tv? Flat out impossible. 

So how to make those ratings great again? How to get those butts in seats of the Good Ol’? Well, the execs of the BBC have a plan for that. They brought in a devouring beast, and it’s name is: Nostalgia.

Without a doubt, there is a number of people who feel nostalgic about RTD’s era of Doctor Who. It’s a lot of people’s fond childhood memory, or the series they started with, and judging by the numbers, there should be quite a lot of them. So the new plan, as it appears, is to get to those who maybe lost interest in the show and lure them with the promise of the thing That Is Totally Like The Thing You Used To Love, Remember? (This is why I don’t actually think that RTD will be allowed to do anything new and interesting, that’s not what they hired him for. And that’s why I think this is bad from the creative standpoint.) So there are two questions here: One, will the people be lured? And two, for how long?

Nostalgia as a marketing strategy is something that you’re probably sick of seeing already (I know I am). But it has very much been effective on many levels, especially the eighties-baiting, Stranger Things style, can bring a new IP up to relevance. But what about old IP’s that want to have a comeback? 

It’s kind of dificult to find another TV show that I could compare to Doctor Who. Most series that have been running for that long are mostly soap operas, that operate on slightly different rules, and are also targeted to a different audience. So as much as the movie series is still not exactly the best comparison, when I think about a big IP, campy sci-fi, family-oriented (at least in theory) on its path back to relevance, I think about Star Wars, obviously. The Force Awakens gambled on that nostalgic feeling and won big, but the next two movies, while still financially successful, were nowhere near the astounding success of the first one. And that’s because - you guessed it - it created the Event You Must See again, The Great Comeback, but merely two years later, the comeback became old news. So what we can gain from that is that nostalgia can create an Event as well as a new trend, if not better. But the question remains: how long will that last?

That is, after all, the main difference between a movie franchise and a TV series in the traditional, network TV sense of the word: movie franchise must bring in the viewership every year or two, and TV series must bring in viewers every week for at least two months. Is RTD’s Nostalgia Vibes enough to provide for that?

I’ll say this: I’m absolutely certain that the 60th anniversary will be very popular. I still don’t think it will break any records because, as I’ve been trying to explain for this whole post, it is not 2007 anymore no matter how much the tv execs would like it to be. But ironically, the almost-certain success of the special is the very thing that could undermine the effect of bringing their precious Nostagia Boi back onboard. Remember, the first Event Episode is The Big Oof. That’s the one that gets asses to the Good Ol’, if anything ever does. After the first big event one, that’s the point when things start going down. They’re wasting their Special Event Boi for something that already would be an event, dear fucking gods, I hate your plan and I would still execute it better. Either have RTD be the Anniversary Guy and then hire someone new, use that hype and keep it going, OR have RTD come in after the anniversary, then at least you get the Event Effect for the premiere of his first return season. Fukin’ amateurs.

But even if they did that, here’s the thing: do you think that the people who departed from the show years ago actually want to watch another three to five seasons of The RTD Show? I mean, I’m sure the thought warmed some hearts, for sure. A number of people will definitely gladly watch the anniversary, probably the first few episodes of the first return to the basics, but after that? In the world when, due to streaming, they have an easy way to revisit the actual thing they’re nostalgic towards? I honestly don’t think so. And you’re not really gonna get many new people by going back, if that nostalgia factor isn’t there. And then there’s casual viewers, the backbone, as we established. And here’s the thing: lots of those people don’t even know who the current showrunner is, cause they’re not Terminally Online like we are, and the second thing? Lots of those people ARE JUST NOT WATCHING NETWORK TV, IM SORRY GARRY. They’re just. They’re just not. I don’t know how to spell it out better. Even my mum has netflix now. Your biggest base is in another castle mate, gotta get moving and gotta get moving quick, cause here’s another thing: all the nostalgia in the world will not do SHIT for you if your target, people who were kids/teens when the RTD era was airing, PROBABLY DON’T EVEN HAVE A FUCKING TV ANYMORE CAUSE THEY MOVED OUT OF THEIR PARENTS FLAT AND LOTS OF YOUNG PEOPLE JUST DON’T BOTHER. Just. I’m sorry but you’re trying to resuscitate a decade-deceased corpse there buddy. It just won’t work. The times have changed and you gotta swim or drown, and it’s just not gonna be 2005 again, no matter how hard you pretend it is. It’s not your content it’s your business model. Just push more marketing for your iplayer or whatever, focus on streaming as your primary not your secondary cause that’s just what it is now, and maybe don’t rely on the viewer-counting systems of the yesteryear to evaluate your business. Or else you’re gonna get stuck sacrificing the creative growth of your show for a marketing strategy that probably won’t even fucking WORK.

There, I got it of my chest. Feel free to reblog, and also: you somehow got to the end of this, congrats! I’ll make numbers nerds out of y’all yet.

[popculturebuffet]

Scottrospective: Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together! or Days of Summer

Hello all you happy scottaholics! Welcome back to those of you who’ve read the rest of this retrospective and welcome to those of you just joining us. This is the Scottrospective, my look at all 6 volumes of Scott Pilgrim, the game and the movie. It’s all the video game refrenes, slice of life story telling and boob punches you can handle!

It’s been three months since I left off with “The Infinite Sadness” , and while I intended to cover this one for Valentine’s Day, my schedule got away from me and with March being full up, this ended taking till April

I”m not too put off by it though as the hiatus between these two reviews is fitting for this one both in story and out. In story there’s a couple month time skip between books, while out.. this book got delayed a few times.  

This is notable to me at least because this was the first volume of the series I bought when it came out. As i’ve brought up before I came into the series via the Free Comic Book Day Issue and the second and third volumes, picking one up later. I still have my original copies despite no longer really needing them thanks to having the color editions in general. Always will provided something dosne’t happen to them. So this was my first instalment that I got to read fresh and got to wait for and be hyped about and i’d saved enough money that I was able to pre-order it. So the experince of waiting and waiting for the book only to keep seeing it slide back is vivid in my mind as is the frustration I felt having the one thing I COULD NOT WAIT FOR, keep going further and further back. 

So with this long wait and the fact I bought this one when it came out, as I would for the next two which didn’t get delayed thank god, this volume naturally means a lot for me. When I wrote Scott Pilgrim fanfiction, this volume’s status quo is what I based it on. It was the coolest to me and the one I loved to reread the most. It has the most contained story, the most character growth at the time, and the best art due to Bryan’s style having finally hit it’s stride. Not that the art for volumes 1-3 is bad mind you, but it’s very clear his style was changing and shaping into what it is now with each one and while it’d change a bit more, this volume is where the style and quality everyone thinks of when they think of this series and the kind you see on various art done from it comes from. 

So as you can tell i’m excited for this one. Before we get started there WERE two shorter comics released between this one both for Free Comic Book day, the first of which, Free Scott Pilgrim, is the reason I got into the series and the second, the Wonderful World of Kim Pine .. was both delightful and sets up Kim moving in with Hollie for this volume. Originally I intended to cover these in this review.. but I realized they wouldn’t of helped the pacing and this review is going to be way longer than my standard as is.

So instead I came up with the compromise. I did review them.. but as bonus reviews on my patreon. For just one buck a month you can read them and help me reach my stretch goals which now include reviews of Lost at Sea, Seconds and SnotGirl, aka Bryan’s OTHER comics. You can find my patreon THROUGH THIS LINK HERE if your intrested in the exclusives or helping me reach my reviews. I also intend to do an exclusive of Monica Beetle, a short comic Bryan did starring Scott’s dad in the 70s at some point so keep your eyes peeled for that, as well as the three strips he did of Style, the comic that gave us the prototypes for Lisa and Kim. 

I will talk about their connections and setups for this volume briefly: FSP sets up the next ex as a ninja, with Roxy having a bunch of posters come to live and pummel our boy, while Wonderful World has Hollie tell Kim she can move in with her. It’s not much, hence why i made these exclusives but they are good stories, so check them out. And with that JOIN ME UNDER THE CUT, as we enter Scott’s world once more as he grapples with the past, employment, and saying the L-Word... which might be Lesbians. I don’t know. Find out bellow!

So we open Two Months after Volume 3 with a beach birthday party! Complete with Kim in a swim suit!

But it’s for Julie who lobs a volley ball at Scott’s head when he and Ramona try to make out. 

I also dont’ know if “Manfiesting out of all the world’s collectives sorrows” counts as a “birth” necessarily but whatever. I love a good beach story. It’s just a fun setitng for swimming, romance and battling a giant crab with the help of the bird what lives in your backpack.

So after the beach our heroes get dinner and Ramona sweetly calls Scott the nicest guy she’s ever dated. He responds with “That’s sad”. Blunt, but entirely accruate. Julie calls it pathetic and tries to counter Ramona RIGHTFULLY saying “who the hell asked you?” something that really should come after EVERYTHING Julie said with “Back off bitch i’ts my birthday”

So later that night Sex Bomb-Omb has a beach sing along, and I can’t help but notice Neil’s hairy legs. 

I mean yes it does make since for a 19 year old to have leg hair, but of all the characters besides Stephen, the ONLY other character we’ve seen it with to give it to, why the character you specifically single out as “Young” it’s just a weird choice I never noticed before. 

But anyways Julie has to whine about it because she’s Julie, she can’t stand other people being happy and complains the song...

One of my faviorite moments of the series. Knives puts a nicer spin on it, she’s here too and not over with Neil because, as we’ll find out later they broke up, but she just asks if Knives should be drinking. She shouldn’t but for fucks sake lady she was just trying to talk. I also do like that despite Julie trying to control Ramona’s love life, you know the thing the VILLIANS are doing, Ramona cannot stand her now.. and honestly probably never did. 

But Julie, SOMEHOW turns out to be right for once as Kim and Knives have disappeared later that night, and Scott elects to go look for them. Also Ramona says she wants to marry kim while drunk after Julie asks if she does. The throuple is strong with these three... serioulsy that’s my one true pairing for all three now. I mean it ballances out their collective flaws, it’s cute and Ramona is just as into her boyfriends ex as she is her actual boyfriend even when she’s not hamered. Why the fuck not?

Scott instead finds the two making out. I will confess I shipped these two when I was younger.. but I don’t. Not because their gay or anything or because I found another ship for them but because the age gap is still just as wide as it was for Scott. The game did not get this memo and made them a couple which is... ehhhhhhhhh. I mean I wouldn’t mind either being bi, but it just brings up the same problems even if their both hammered. I also question why this scene exists. No really outside of one face punchingly dickish comment from Scott later, this never comes up again and it doesn’t effect Kim’s or Knives character any. Why have this? it’s clearly not fanservice, it’s just a thing that happened. And while Scott Pilgrim as a series does have some of those, as does life and that’s fine.. this is a bit too major, i.e. Kim and Knives, two of the main cast, making out, drunkenly or not, to just.. gloss over you know? I feel Kim would feel majorly guilty for this, as she has the most active moral compass of the main group, and Knives would be massively confused but it’s just.. forgotten because I dunno. In a story that’s otherwise pretty stellar this stands out as an utter waste of potential. I’m not saying have them hook up, gay or not it’s still not better than what Scott did, but have them at least talk about it and have both grow or something from it. Sheesh. 

So we cut to.. another day. Maybe the next day I dunno but it’s August. Point is Scott and Wallace are grocery shopping and Wallace notes they can’t get fancy mayo as their barely in budget. I would’ve glossed over this scene... but @panur​ pointed out back around the Infinite Sadness review that this scene reveals something very intrestng: Scott.. is kind of a fincial burdern to Wallace. Before this while Scott mooched off him it wasn’t all that clear that Wallace was struggling. 

But here we notice that outside of some Havarti, it’s just the simplest stuff imaginable: turkey, bread, boxed mac and cheese ramen noodles... it’s nto BAD stuff, I have all of that in my house and it’s good stuff... but it’s not the kind of thing that you need to carefully budget for. Now granted part of this probably is Wallace as he likely spends a LOT on drinks, condoms and two 2 liters of diet soda a day.. but while he really needs to adress his alcohol issues, the rest is fair. He should be allowed to have as much sex and diet coke as he wants it’s his money. Same with the havarti. He earned it if he wants some really delcious cheese with herbs, seriously Havarati is the best, then that’s his bidness. But the rest of the time he’s barely managing to get  a basketfull of cheap food.. because he has to provide for Scott. It’s clearly something Scott dosen’t get and something I can relate to not getting. It took me a while to get how hard it is to budget for a full family, let alone two people on one income like Wallace has to. But Wallace is working on a nice job... but still a call center or something. He can’t pay for everything and the finccial stress is about to give as their landlord wants to meet with them. And as we’re about to learn things were even worse than we thought. 

Our heroes head home where we get a truly iconic conversation when, over margeritas (again proving my point that while Scott certainly isn’t HELPIGN wallace’s finacials, it’s not all on him)

This will be imporant later.. both the Lesbians part and Scott’s struggle saying it. he tried earlier on the beach but couldn’t get it out and Ramona clearly didn’t want to hear it as she kapt sshhhhing him.. playfully of course but still. 

So some time later it’s moving day! Kim is moving into Hollie and Josephs, and Scott, Stephen and Jason are helping. You might be wondeirng who the hell Jason is. He’s Kim’s boyfriend. I do not likes him. Not because he’s kim’s boyfriend, getting upset because a fictional character you fancy is dating is just patently stupid. I’ts like getting upset a celebrity crush is in a relationship: you had no chance anyway why. I wasn’t even bothered as a kid. I don’t really like him.. because he has no real personaliy and no real baring on the plot and I struggle to think why Bryan included him other than for a really annoying plot twist next time, which does not help my liking him knowing what’s coming. 

But while our heroes help our heroine move in, and Scott is suprised Hollie is there despite Kim having told him a minute ago she was moving in with her, something I can relate to sadly, we get something vitally plot important; Stephen passes Joseph’s room.. and notices he has a small recording setup in his room. Stephen quickly begs him to record the band’s album and Joseph agrees if only because he finds Stephen hot. Eh i’ve seen better relationships start on less, fair enough. And yes I said relationship more on that in a bit. 

So after a brief scene of Scott and Ramona having lunch where Scott fails to know her age and when Ramona says he could just ask.. hea sks and she dosen’t tell, not a bad scene character wise just not very plot important and probably should’ve bene swapped in order with the previous scene, we get to the next day. There’s a heat wave so Wallace orders Scott to go to the mall maybe find a job. He emphasises that. 

Instead Scott just sorta bums around thirst but nto having any money.. until an old face shows up. 

For those who forgot like Scott has, it’s Lisa Miller from the Volume 2 flashback, the girl who had a crush on Scott and was close friends with him and Kim. After a tackle hug  and some panic Scott eventually remembers.... if in a curiously unique and self serving way

At the time this was just hilarous. Now it’s very clear foreshadowing for the big twist in Volume 6. The two catch up while Scott is very clearly attracted to her but very clearly dosen’t want to be, with Lisa wondering where kim is, finding about Ramona, etc, before offering Scott lunch as the two catch up and Scott is very conflicted about how he feels. It’s nice visual stuff as he’s blushing, something more clear in the color version and trying to desperatley sort things out. As for why Lisa’s here she’s moving to the states soon, but is staying with her sister for now. 

So after an incdental scene with Wallace we catch up with Knives, who has broken up with Neil. And after some talk about Clash at the Demonhead, Tamra notes Knives apparently put a big x on her shrine of Scott... which baffles Knifves as she sure as hell didn’t do it and is still, sadly, obessed with Scott as ever. Granted Tamra isn’t at all helpful here claiming she did it even when she says she didn’t, is clearly confused and while yes we don’t know who else would care Tams, that just makes it all the more creepy. Stop gaslighting your bestie, she’s already got enoguh issues. She dosen’t need thinking she might have a split personality on top of the stalking, obession over a guy who has no intrest in loving her back, and attempted stabbings. Knives dosesn’t get a ton of focus in this one sadly. She kind of takes a back seat, and while sh’es not GONE from the volumle and someone close to her does impact it, she dosen’t really have any personal progression, negative or positive, like she does in every other volume, a shame since her personal jouney is one of the most intresting of the main cast. 

Anyways that night Scott hangs out with Lisa, having not gotten around to telling Ramona she exists yet and plays a game of find the Kim Pine. She goes to Neil’ and Stephen’s place for practice, but finds no one there and Neil being a dick... get used to that it’s going to get about 80 times worse soon enough. Though we do get this classic panel i’ve gotten some use out of 

He goes to Kim’s place, but she , Hollie and Satan’s Misterss have all left to Sneaky Dee’s, the local mexican place, for something to eat and Stephen is either high or doing.. something with Joseph. 

Yeah i’m not hiding that Stephen turns out to be gay in the final volume or cheating on Bitch and a Half with Joseph. And even if I hate Julie with the power of a frozen sun, I still dont’ think cheating on her is kosher. He could’ve just broken up with her and while part of it was likely confusion, and he could also be bi and not decided which one he wanted to be with, it’s still a dick move.. and later makes him a hypocrite but that’s a rant for next volume. 

So our heroes FINALLY find Kim, along with Hollie and Mouthface. And a nice thing I like is that Kim and Lisa are just.. increidbly close, happily catching up and making plans to hang before Lisa leaves, that despite Lisa having feelings for Scott the two ended up as close and She and Scott did and i’ts sweet to see. it’s also just.. rare to see Kim GENUINELY happy. I mean look at her

It’s not like she HASN’T smiled across the series but normally she’s just so miserable, likely because her best friends are a grumbly asshole who forces them to hang out with a raging typhoon of bitchiness, and an insenitive asshat who she never got closure with. This is the first decent human being whose not Ramona or Hollie, and that last one’s not going to last, in a while. It’s genuinely sweet to just see her.. enjoy the moment for once, honestly engaged with someone. Ramona shows up and finally meets Lisa, who apparently was on Degrassi.. I mean she says candaian show no one ever watched, and I watched that plenty but i’d like to think she was on there for a season or two. I liked Degrassi.. I honeslty miss it and think it could use some form of revivial and think porting it to netflix was a smart decision.. what wasn’t so smart was not having the other seasons leading into it on there. Need to watch more of it. 

So the next day Ramona stumbles into Scott’s dreams and both are annoyed, with Ramona suggesting he get a job. This finally gets him to try. He asks about Wallace’s work but understandably, he dosen’t really want scott there and asks if he even knows. So Scott sets out to ask his other friends for jobs, while Knives shows up saying she’s “totally not stalking him” but someone is following HER, a mysterious spiky haired dude in a black leather jacket, shades and with a sword on his back. Whu-oh. 

He tries Second Cup, with Julie annoyed that Stephen’s recording.. it’s hard to tell if she’s annoyed because she’s a bitch or because Stephen is both gneuinely annoying right now and clearly screwing around behind her back. My take?

But Scott realizes maybe getting a job at his Sister’s place of work who also works with his arch enemy might be stupid and backs out. He next tries Kim’s, but backs out of that too, admitting to kim it’d be stupid and Kim lists off all the reasons (His lack of resume, the fact them working together would be stresful and his ountain of late fees) why that’d be stupid, but in a jovial way. For once i’ts clear that while she’s still taking the piss out of them she isn’t mad at Scott.

In fact she genuinely helps him get a job, taking him to Stephen’s work since hers is dead right now anyway, a vegan place.  While Scott naturally compares things to a job system as he’d start as dishwasher while Stephen taught him prep, Scott agrees to genuinely take this seriously and Stephen’s boss decides “eh why not” when he asks her to employ him. Scott is gainfully employed baby! God I miss that. Seriously i’m not pimping my patreon for shits and giggles. 

But as he celebrates and Kim wishes she could punch his life in the face, they run into some trouble on the way home: Katana man who slices a motherfucking bus in half and chases them, with Scott reluctnat to fight because he has a sword and Scott does not, which is valid. He does escape though using subspace. He and Kim part awkardly and he returns home to Wallace throwing a party with two intresting charcters, a woman and a man of color, one of the few in the entire work, who are never seen again. 

The next night is practice.. or rather recording, and we start to see Neil get edged out, with him unable to come due to exams and clearly not happy about it, and Stephen just kind of ignoring anything he cares about like the dickhead he is. It dosen’t get any better as “recording” ends up just being Scott, Ramona, and Ratfaced Knacker watching bored with Joseph and Stephen work. Eventaully Scott and Ramona decide to get out of there as things are getting tensed between thing one and thing bitch, and leave.. and take Julie with them for some reason. 

So the three have dinner with Lisa, Kim, and Jason before The Mummies Curse thankfully leaves. Jason thought they were friends. 

We also get this exchange. 

I mean.. she is the better option. She his THE option. But before we can get the obvious answer of 

Stephen comes in with Knives. He smuggled her in. This leads to problems when Scott returns from the bathroom to find Queen Bitch throwing a bitch fit about him having brought her and screechs at her when she dares to talk to him “How do you even know my name?” Well Ted Cruz, you see when someone is an actually thoughtful and likes other people, they keep track of things about them and don’t constnatly tear them down or assume their partneer is automatically bonking a 17 year old instead of you know, actually forming something of a friendship and not shutting her out sensing she needs this friend group. Some people are not vacous piles of vitriol who care about nothing but themself and seem to go off at the slightest thing. 

Scott takes Ramona home but finds a drunken barely awake wallace so no sexy times. Not that he could anyway as the next day is the meeting with Peter their landlord. 

Peter reveals they’ll have to clear out by the 27th as their lease was for one year and their paid up.. as in only the first and last month. The two part melacholy knowing this sucks and isn’t a great situation. Then it’s time for Scott to work work, angelica, work work, eliza and peggy. After grueling day, can relate, he runs into  a wisp on teh wend and steels himself for a fight.. okay he bitches about it being too hot but it’s Scott. so it’s expected. He does get a hit in on his mysterious persuer.. and that’s when we meet Roxy.

Via boob punch, something Scott’s not proud of but in his defense, as Roxy keeps complaning about it, he was blindly struggling for a hit and din’t know the next Ex, or any of them, were female.. not that Ramona didn’t suggest it loudly enough by empahsising “exes” but scott’s a bit of a fuckwit. She mentions “everyone allways remmebers you”.. which is kind of ominus and tells me she tried to hook back up with ramona despite her having a boyfriend and she rejected her. Still on good terms though. But this confusing encounter ends with Roxy vowing she’ll get him next time gadget, next time. 

So we get some assorted slice of life scenes with the band, lisa and what have you as Scott tries to get in touch with Ramona but she keeps avoiding him. THat’s not worrysome at all. And Lisa brings up high school while drunk and clearly hits on Scott. He sidesteps it with her drunkness.. but this clearly isn’t over or going to stop being a problem. 

Speaking of problems Wallace makes Scott confront the truth: He either needs to find a new place to live or commit to staying, though Wallace is trying to nudge him toward asking Ramona to move into her place. Scott starts thinking it over, it being very hard especially since, as Stephen points out this was his very first place of his own.. but Stephen also points out these things are temoporary.. right before Scott ducks from katana guy. 

At work Scott wonders who it could be, though it turns out Stephen’s met him before, as he’s brought his family in here. So he’s PROBABLY not one of the exes.. but it leaves the question why he wants to cut Scott in half like Dewey Cox’s brother. But it turns out he’s nto the only enemy Scott’s casually running into as Roxy is there too.. with Ramona. 

The two talk, clearly about Scott and Lisa with Roxy trying to convince her he’s cheating and Ramona rightfully trusting Scott: while he IS attracted to her, he’s been fighting it every step of the way. Scott storms over to find out what’s going on and while Ramona is more distracted by his new job, she eventually realizes Roxy did attack him and he simply dscribed her poorly when he mentioned the incident over the phone. Scott is confused as he dosen’t get it. Is she with one of the exes what? After some hiinting from both parties, and Roxy rightfully mocking him for not getting the obvious... he finallyg ets it in the grandest way possible. 

So Roxy gets ready to fight and Scott can’t because sword, and gets fired in the background as he hides in Ramona’s bag and Ramona prepares to step in. Roxy screams at her for trusting him and defending him when Ramona.. just dosen’t her boyfriend to be bisected by her ex. A fight insues and a damn cool one at that. I honestly wish the movie had taken more from this, but simply didn’t have time leading it to instead be more like the envy fight with a bit of the Winfried Hailey fight from Free Scott Pilgrim. 

Roxy chases her and Ramona rightly points out Scott can’t run forever but takes him into Subspace.. where Roxy heads them off, having “taught you everything you know bitch” leading to a cool fight in the wintery version of subspace. Again why THIS wasn’t used instead I have no real idea. We also find out she’s a half ninja but she eventually leaves afer Ramona presses that button.. but Rammy is actually apologetic about it and Roxy’s “I hope you and your 24 children are happy together comment” is telling. 

Upon this readthrough of the volume.. I realized Roxy is the most layered and intresting of the exes next to Gideon himself. None of them are out and out terrible, but most of them have pretty simple motives: to kill Scott, ???, profit. Or in Todd’s case to kill scott, bang around and be a dick. But Roxy.. genuinely wants Ramona back. She’s the ONLY one who does: Gideon kinda does, but only in the sense that he wants her for his collection. But Roxy geninely still loves her, admitting so during this fight. And it’s not like she has no chance: out of the 7 exes she’s the ONLY one who parted with Ramona on anything resembling good terms. While intrestingly we don’t find out WHY they broke up, Ramona didn’t cheat on her like she did everyone else she was with. The two have coffee and hang out and Ramona geninely dosen’t even consider until Roxy tries to attack Scott that she’d really try killing him and tries her best to talk her out of it. But what holds Roxy back is her anger: She’s so bitter about the fact Ramona is bi or pan, so dedicated to viewing Ramona’s very orintation as a betryal (though Ramona calling it a phase dosen’t help and the movie RIGHTLY has Roxie comment on it and fly into a rage over it), and so driven to make sure the woman she loves dosen’t get hurt again that it blinds her to the fact Ramona dosen’t love her the same way anymore, and that while Scott is objectively a dick, and a cheater, and a greasy buttcrack pooflap, he is not a terrible person. A meh one sure, but he’s got good to him. She’s so biophobic she simply can’t see he’s a harmless moron.. well harmless to Ramona even with the cheating. He’s killed two people at this point and will kill again. Also she apparently has issues with only being a half ninja but this is never adressed. Point is Roxy’s really grown on me and is now probably my faviorite ex.  

Scott and Ramona talk it over on their way to Sneaky Dees and Scott finally asks to move in and gets a yes. His response is downright adorable. 

So at Sneaky Dee’s Young Neil is just a bit absolutely irate with Scott.. which isn’t fair as them not playing things is entirely on the blocky face asshole. Yell at him.. which he does, pointing out that they haven’t played shows in forever, and that the lady who owns Sneaky Dees not only runs shows, in the upstairs space, but has been asking them to play. Kim is rightly curious about this and to both Stephen just keeps saying “We’re recording right now.” And some of you may of wondered why I hate him. Well while he’s not exctly stellar in the first half in the second Stephen becomes goddman insufferable, slowly destroying the band for his affair and not giving one iota of a shit what anyone else wants. He’s a selfish, egomanical cheating prick. And yes I get it their recording an album.. but doing live shows would give them extra practice, MONEY, even if likely not a lot and exposure for said album. I get professoinal bands stop touring for a bit to do an album but you are not a professional band, and said bands still often iron out the album on the road. God you suck.

But while Scott sidesteps this argument he walks into another where Ramona confronts him about lisa about liking her.. and he rightly says if there was anything, which there was not it’s in the past. And while yes he is a cheater, she does not know this yet. This plot honestly would’ve worked better if she learned about the knives thing sooner, but instead she just comes off as paranoid for listening to Roxy about something that isn’t happening. Yes Scott’s been shown to be attracted to her.. but he’s been ashamed of it, fighting it and in denial about it, and is clealry all in with Ramona. Being attracted to someone else on a phsyical level does NOT mean your relationship is doomed. 

Things get worse as he goes home to ruminate.. and instead sees a man’s Penis. And Wallace..is at his second most unsymapthetic, not letting Scott get a shirt or a bus pass or something like a decent human being for no goddamn reason. Usually when Wallace is a dick to Scott, Scott’s earned it and badly needs a slap in the face. Here he’s just being a prick because.. the plot needs him to? I dunno it dosen’t work for me. It’s in character, I just don’t have to like it. 

So with no other options.. Scott ends up at Lisa’s. And so we get the last temptation of Scott. Lisa admits, embarassed that she’s been wearing sexy dresses and what not specifically to attract him, with Scott also mentioning how things are rough, Lisa tries to fight it herself pointing out he’s with ramona.. and when Scott points out they didn’t do anything in the past Lisa points out they should’ve.. and maybe they should now. 

We fade to black as Scott ends up in a dream and finds Roxy, who naturally has the same skill and tries to Freddy Kruger him before he wakes. He finds Lisa but they didn’t do anything: Scott pushed her away and babbled about how much he loved Ramona instead. As i’ve said.... his heart was never with LIsa... and even when he was so close to giving in he couldn’t. It’s a tangible sign of growth: He screwed around on Knives with Ramona, and given how bad things were getting with Ramona, it would be oh so easy to once again ditch a relationship the minute he found something else and oh so understandable. But... he dosen’t. He loves Ramona even if he hasn’t said it, he wants to make this work, and he’s changed. She’s changed him. He’s not quite a good man yet.. bu he’s getting to be good enough. Love turned him from a skeezy dumbass into a far more loveable dumbass. Ramona’s gotten him to stop dating a teenager (even if again he cheated), face his past with envy to finally move on and now get a job. He’s realized just hwo much she means to his life and world and so he goes to tell her. 

Riggghtttt after going to get his job back and works a shift, with steven wanting to punch his life in the balls. Stephen shut the fuck up. Just because Scott is lucky and your stuck dating satan’s scrotum does not mean you get to punch his life int he balls. Kim does, because he’s put her through more shit but not you. 

He goes to second cup to talk to Stacey.. only to end up at the wrong one where Knives also now has a job... and we finally get an answer to who the mystery katana guy is...

Yup turns out wielding giant weapons in vengance runs in the family. As for how he knows about Scott her aunt mentioned her boyfriend, everyone freaked out and obviously while her mom was mentioned as knowing in volume 1, they did not tell her dad whose brain turned into an engine of vengance and defaced the shrine. While part of it is apparnetly racisim for Scott being white the fact is he clearly saw Scott’s photograph. The guy is 5 years older. I get him being protective. Still dosen’t justify cutting off his head. His balls maybe but not his head. 

And then Scott ran, once agian finding a subspace entracne.. and this time we see inside ramona’s head and well...

Yeah.. that’s.. kind of fucked, and Ramona isn’t happy scott saw that, though she backs down once Scott explains..a nd then gets upset over him staying at Lisa’s but before SCott can tell her he loves her it turns out Roxy stayed over. So yeah, Ramona might of cheated, she tells him to alk it off and he runs around in a psycadelic haze of emtoinal confusion. And meets.. someone new...

Scott snaps out of his funk and ignores his doppleganger heading back for Ramona... whose fighting Mr. Chau. Scott left the door to Ramona’s head open and he followed him through Subspace. Scott lures him into the house and away from her only to run into Roxy. This leads to both of his attackers fighting and her wondering if Gideons ent him “Why does no one ever belivie in me?!” 

She soon realize no i’ts just unrelated and calls Scotto ut on hiding behind not having a sword and behind her being a woman, caling it a flimsy excuse. I mean she’s tring to kil lhim. It’s okay to hit an enemy combatant. Scott realizes he has to stop running... and get real with ramona leading to a truly epic, romantic and heartfelt speech and given how far he’s come and just how heartfelt it is it’s a real sign of how deep he feels. Sure we’ve seen genuine chemstiry between the two.. but htis moment is a shit.. from a simple relationship.. into true love. 

I may of only had a few but Relationships are not easy, They take work, they take time, they take patience and theyt ake love.. but if your willing to work with someone, look past some flaws and help them with the rest.. then it’s worth it. And Scott has finally realized it and for the first time in a while is running TOWARDS something difficult, actually working on this relationship and talking with his partner instead of running finding someone else or wallowing. He’s truly grown up. While he still has miles to go.. he’s taken about 50 steps forward with this. And as such given the kind of unvierse we’re in, as Ramona is genuinely touched by it he levels up a glowing sword with a heart shaped hilt coming out of his chest.. and realizing what’s happening he pulls it out....

So Scott faces off with roxy and in an awesomly short battle, their sords clash.. and he bisects her. 

Scott then honestly talks down Mr Chau who leaves after a nod, and Ramona tells Scott she loves him two. The two make out and all is well.

One make out fades into another, as we cut to Scott moving in with Kim and Blockhead’s help. Well kinda they only had one box but they owed him one. He and wallace comiserate over the end of their time as roomies. They’ll always be friend but it’s truly the end of an era. Also Wallace gets off another bit of dickery as he’’s very glad it all worked out for scott...

 Now there’s the Wallace I know and love. Dickish but just the right loveable kind of douchebag with that swagger. 

Back at Knives house she’s apparenlty into somebody though who I have no idea, Mr Chau give sher his blessing and she.. apparenlty doesen’t know chinese. I dunno. As I said her subplot this go round was her weakest overall. 

And so we end with the whole gang gathered to see Lisa off. It’s a REALLY nice shot, and one of the only times Wallace is seen with the Sex Bomb omb side of the group. Oh sure he goes to their shows and what not, but generally their never in the same vincinity so while there’s no interaction I still find this neat. Seriously the whole main cast is there, it’s a really lovely shot

Also Jason and Hollie.. who are getting awfully chummy. Whu Oh. And of course Craphole and Mouth Face are as likeable as ever. 

So we jsut get a genuinely nice sene. Except Stephen and Julie reconciling. Fuck that. Please move on. And as everyone fondly wishes Lisa adeu and wish she stuck arond the res tof the series we end on Scott and Ramona snuggling, Scott asking her her birthday and finding out she’s 24, and they both will be come september. Scott wishes this moment could last. 

They probperly snuggle as the volume ends on a high. 

Final Thoughts:

Yeah.. Gets it Together is, on rexamination, DEFINTELY my faviorite of the 6. Besides personal value i’ts hte best contained story, contaning lots of character development, great character moments, jokes, and EASILY the best art so far, with goregouness and creativty abounding. 

There is a problem here or there: Stephen and Julie’s subplot feels underbaked, and not just because I hates them, and there are several scenes that don’t further plot or character stuff. Ther’es also stuff that could’ve been expanded on.. but given this is still a pretty meaty graphic novel, it’s understandable why it wasn’t.. though it is why I’d love a streaming series since while the movie is excellent, a full series could expand on stuff from the books more Brian simply didn’t have time for. Knives also didn’t get a lot to do. 

But their drowned out by tons of great decisions: Lisa was a wonderful additoin to the cast and I genuinely wish she’d stuck around, adding in some energy, blending well with the Sex Bomb Omb crowd, and having great dynamics with everyone and her arc with Scott is heartbreaking,knowing she can’t have him but wanting him anyway having never gottne proper closure on the man she’s always wanted. She’s a heartbreaking character and its nice to see her end in a decent place and on good terms with Scott, having let him go for both thier sakes. 

And while Lisa is a highlight everyone is on their a game here for the most part apart from knives, girl hitler, and captain dumbass: Scott grows signfigantly but is funny as hell, Wallace has an intresting arc trying to nudge Scott out without being overt about it, scared to really confront him, Kim is in a happy and serene place for once and it shows. The villians are also intresting: While Mr Chau is a tad underbaked, he’s sitll a cool imposing presence. I do think he shoudl’ve had more to do with the plot.. but is still just so freaking cool it papers over that and him just.. disappearing after this like poor Lisa. 

Roxy is far more intresting, having clearly more going on than we see and while I wish we’d got her backstory, she’s easily the most engaging of the exes, being the only one to actively compete with Scott (All her and ramona end up doing is making out a little it turned out), and have bigger stakes than just “The glasses wearing douche asked me to beat up my exes boyfriend and I was like alright. 

All in all Gets it Together is really magical, the series high point, and just damn fun and it was a pleasure to go through

Next Month on Scott Pilgrim: It all falls down as we take a look into what once was my least faviorite Album, vs the unvierse. Two perfect assholes try and murder scott with Robutts, his relationship and band crumble and things get sad so very very sad. 

Next on this blog: More LIlo and Stitch! The Proud Family come to Kauai and get into a fight with our heroes. Also wizard kelly... who if nothing else is now far more tolerable now i’ve had to spend another volume with the wicked bitch of the west. Touche universe touche. See you at the next rainbow. 

[darkeninganon]

This may be a bit of a confusing chapter, but I was like... not functioning during this whole thing. Still not really functioning. Anyways, Trigger warning: Gream acting like Dream (He gets angry, yells, and throws stuff).

This was an absolute nightmare. Tubbo and Ranboo had returned home, stopped by Puffy's to pick up Gream, only to discover that Gream was gone. Missing! Not in the mansion or the house. He was free to leave...

That was a lie. What with the prison so close to Snowchester, it wasn't safe for Gream to leave. That wasn't even taking into account that no one on the server liked him and would likely try to kill him on sight. This was such a nightmare. Tommy did a sort of groan-scream in an effort to vent his frustrations, but with everyone looking in different directions to find the tiny green ghost, the teen was left alone with his own thoughts. Well, then again, it wasn't just for Gream's safety. It was sort of a revenge for what he did  when he sent Tommy to exile.

Tommy recognized how twisted it was, to get revenge on a ghost with no memory, and that was why he wasn't destroying anything Gream built or being stupidly cruel. Still, he would have to confront the ghost about leaving Snowchester. Especially if he had a shrinking episode while out and about.

"Oi! Pay the toll you-"

"Aw, fuck off man! This is still my hotel!" And just when his day couldn't get any worse, Jack Manifold had spotted Tommy searching the hotel grounds for the tiny ghost. At least Jack didn't know about what happened, hopefully it would stay that way.

"This isn't your hotel! Don't you see the name-"

"Fuck off you-"

And the two descended into arguing, finger pointing and cursing filling the little lobby of the hotel. If Sam Nook was here, Tommy wouldn't have to worry. A thought came to Tommy. He had built this hotel on top of...

"Oh, Jack, you brilliant bastard! See you later!" Tommy ran to the edge of the path, looking down to see a grouping of iron doors. Useless iron doors, but iron doors that lead to the one place none of them had thought about checking. Tommy ignored Jack gloating about how he was smart, or some other nonsense; it didn't matter right now. What did matter was the little green person running into the house.

Tommy jumped down, letting out a squawk as he hit the ground hard, ankle tweaking in protest. Jack was yelling something at him from above, probably to get lost or pay the toll. Tommy ignored him, ducking into the little hole that lead to the most dangerous place on the server: Dream's house.

Gream jumped as he spun to leave, greeted by Tommy's face in the entry tunnel. "Jeeze! Tommy! What the hell?!" Anger flooded Gream. Why was Tommy here? Gream finally felt somewhat safe and Tommy dared to just-

"Well, good to see you too mate. Puffy was right worried about you." Tommy pulled himself into the house, sitting cross-legged in front of the door as he smiled down at Gream. "Tubbo, Ranboo, and I were also pretty spooked. I mean, fuck, just imagine if Sam found you. God that would suck." Tommy rambled to himself, running his hand through his hair. Sure, some of it was a lie, but it was true enough that Tommy didn't want Gream to go back to the prison, that would just break the ghost and then he might return to being like Dream.

Gream stared at Tommy. Did the teen... know? "Wait..." No, Tommy had to know. Puffy once worked with and believed the man with the gold tooth. But to just ask that was... No, Gream would be punished for asking such a question. But surely there was some way to get an answer... "Uh, Tommy, we're friends, right?"

Tommy stiffened, staring at Gream in surprise. "Uh, yeah, I guess... It's a little awkward because, well... I was... was... friends with you... from before." Tommy fidgeted, pulling on the cuff of his sleeve. "It's uh... stirring up some old memories, you know?" Tommy looked at his hands, picking at his cuticles. Why now was Gream doubting him?

"Um, what do you know about... Puffy?"

"Gream." The ghost jolted, looking up at Tommy, who was clearly nervous about something. With a sigh, Tommy continued. "If you have a specific question in mind, just... just ask me, alright mate? I'm not going to blow a fucking... gasket or something. We're cool man, we're cool."

Gream sighed, fiddling with the edge of his mask. "Well, you see, Foolish came by... before."

"Yeah, We were told."

"Let me finish!" Gream watched Tommy flinch slightly, his heart twisting and fluttering at the same time. Weird. "Well, Puffy... She knew where I was and... And... How many people believed him? The man with the gold tooth, he... he spread lies and told people... told them I deserved to be there? Why? What did I do to him? Why was the book so important? How many people... how many people want me dead again?" Gream was bordering on tears now. He didn't want people to hate him, he hadn't done anything wrong. Surely it was just because he shared a mask with the monster Tommy and Tubbo talk about. "Why did my own mom believe him?" Gream curled up on the floor, sniffling and crying. The thought of Puffy, someone he cared about and someonje who cared about him, believing some creepy guy over her own child was twisting his heart too much. He didn't want to think about what he could have even said to get her to believe his lies.

Gream startled as something pet him. Slow and gentle. He uncurled slightly, looking at Tommy who was leaning towards him, hand extended. "Sorry..." Tommy pulled his hand back, looking away from Gream. "I... It's a hard question to answer... Not because I don't know. But because..." Tommy looked back at Gream, cringing. "It's hard to answer because I do know."

"Tell me." Gream stood, rubbing the tears from under his mask.

"Gream, I don't-"

"Tell me Tommy!" The little ghost took a step forward, trying to intimidate Tommy into telling him. Tommy flinched again, raising his hands as if Gream was going to strike him. Gream stopped, taking a step back; "Please, just tell me."

Tommy was silent for several minutes. "Just about... everyone. Including me, Tubbo, and Ranboo." Tommy could just barely see Gream moving back, shock and horror evident in his body language. "That's why... When I saw you as a ghost... I was so shocked. No one was supposed to visit you." Tommy relaxed, going back to messing with the cuff of his sleeve. "We were all turned away... when we tried to visit. I managed to sneak in once. You..." Tommy sucked in a breath, gritting his teeth. "You-"

"Enough. I don't want to hear anymore." Gream turned away from Tommy, covering his ears. Just how powerful was this gold-toothed guy? What did he have over everyone in the server? And what was the damn book-

"You brought Wilbur back to life."

Gream stopped. He... "I did what?" Gream turned to face Tommy, shaking slightly.

Tommy sighed. "The book was... It had the knowledge in it that allowed you to revive people. You never shared it with anyone. Not me, not Tubbo, not Ranboo, not Puffy. The only person you used it on was Wilbur. Possibly because Ghostbur had asked you to, and, well... It may have turned out to be a mistake, but, we'll see what Wilbur is doing eventually." Tommy sighed again, looking at Gream. The little green ghost seemed surprised.

"So... I only used it once?" Gream tilted his head, clearly confused.

"Yeah. And that one time was all the man with the gold tooth needed it seems. God... Had I not used Ghostbur to sneak in-"

"Why were you sneaking in?"

Tommy's mind floundered. What the hell was he going to tell Gream? You know what, fuck it. Tommy might as well tell him the truth. "I... may have been going in there to kill you...?"

"What?!"

"Listen Gream, the guy... he said you did some pretty awful things! Ranboo.. he's got memory problems, and he said you did that. He said you were best friends with the guy who executed Tubbo-"

"Tubbo got executed?!"

"He said you worked with the president of Manburg and were the reason Wilbur blew up Old L'Manburg-"

"Wait, Wilbur blew up-"

"God's sake man, this is just the tip of the iceberg, okay! The- No, you know what, we're done with this. He said you did a lot of really shitty things, and we believed him, because he may or may not have held a position of political power for a long time."

"What?!" Gream began pacing, groaning in agitation. "He had- Oh my GOD that makes so much sense now. FUCK. This sucks so mu-uch. For fuck's sake this sucks!" Gream opened his eyes, moving his hands away from his face. He was normal size now. Well, that was weird, but it helped. With anger, Gream kicked the closest chest he could, knocking it over with the contents spilling out across the floor.

"Gream, shh, you need to be-"

"No, Tommy! I'm not going to be quiet! This sucks! The person who tortured me- who killed me- is running around doing God only knows what, and people will believe him at the drop of a hat because he had political power?! This is bullshit! Manburg isn't even around anymore, neither is L'Manburg, but apparently he's still- ARGH! For fuck's sake!"

Tommy cringed away, hyperventilating as he watched Gream toss a chest across the small space. Tommy felt like he was in exile again, or the cell. Gream was going to...

"The fuck's going on in here?!"

Shit.

Tommy and Gream snapped to see Jack Manifold crawling through the entrance, stopping to stare at the green ghost. The three were silent for what felt like an eternity. And then Jack moved. "SAM!"

"Oh no you don't you fucking-"

"Tommy, let me go, Dream's-"

"Dream's dead! This is Gream! He's nice!"

"Fuck you, let go of my fucking ankle you prick!"

"Jack shut up and listen for once, you can't tell Sam!"

"Fuck you, yes I can!"

"No you fucking can't! Gream hasn't done anything-"

"He's trespassing on my property!"

"It's my hotel, bitch!"

Jack suddenly kicked Tommy, sending the teen sprawling back with a bloody nose. He could faintly hear Gream yelling his name, clearly concerned for what had just happened. A cold hand grabbed Tommy's arm, pulling him to his feet. Jack was gone, and Gream was struggling to keep Tommy upright. Tommy pushed the ghost away. "I'm fine! We need to get you back to Snowchester, now." Tommy grabbed Gream's arm, pulling the ghost towards the little tunnel. Both boys crawled out, climbing up the sheer cliffs to the prime path and running to the tunnel for Snowchester.

Something began following them. No, someone. Tommy looked to see a very angry Sam and Jack using tridents to fly after them. Gream was about to look back, but Tommy grabbed his arm, shoving the ghost in front of him. "Go! Get to Snowchester!"

"Tommy, what's-"

"Don't look, alright?! Just go!" Tommy shoved Gream towards the wall, sending the ghost past it, but Tommy stopped, drawing the sword- Dream's sword- and spinning to face their pursuers. Sam and jack slid to a stop on top of the tunnel, both armed with axes and shields against Tommy.

"Tommy."

"Sam."

The trio stood there in silence, Gream just beyond the walls of Snowchester; just out of reach from people who would put him back in jail.

"I hear Dream was out of Snowchester, Tommy." Sam's voice was dark, heavy. It wasn't the voice of Awesamdude or Sam Nook. It was The Warden.

"Well, you heard wrong. Dream died, Sam. You know that." Tommy pointed the sword towards Sam and Jack, praying that they backed off.

"What the hell do you mean?! He's right behind you!" Jack yelled, pointing incredulously at the ghost.

Tommy's gaze flickered to Jack. He wouldn't win in a fight against both of them. Jack he could maybe win against, but certainly not Sam. "You might want to get your eyes checked out mate. That's my friend Gream. He's a good lad and-" Tommy cut himself off. He almost said it. Almost but not quite.

"And what, Tommy?" Sam tilted his head. Out of the three of them, he seemed the most relaxed. It was more unnerving than if he were on edge.

Tommy took a breath. He had to be calm right now. "And he's not trying to cause problems. But things like that," Tommy tilted his head to the enchanted netherite axes held by the two, "That gets him on edge. He gets scared by those things, you know?"

"Oh, so him yelling and kicking stuff with you cowering was just you two having a bonding moment? Huh? Like exile?"

"Shut up Jack! I may need therapy from that, but I'm sure as hell not going to talk about it with you." Tommy grit his teeth. Of course Jack wouldn't care. No one but Tommy could see how fortunate this was, all anyone else could see was Dream. This was a chance at obtaining true peace, and nobody but Tommy was willing to see that. Well, okay Puffy, Tubbo, and Ranboo probably did see it, at least somewhat. Having your worst enemy be your best friend? What could be a better form of revenge? "Look, Gream is protected by Snowchester, and if you two don't-"

"Knock it off Tommy." Sam stepped forward, swatting the tip of the sword away as he closed the space between him and Tommy. "We all know you wouldn't win. So just hand over the prisoner, and you'll never have to worry about this again. Okay? Dream goes back to prison, you go back to living your normal life, and everyone lives happily, ever, after. Okay?"

A trident slammed into the glass between Sam and Tommy, the teen stumbling back into Snowchester. Ranboo jumped down, pulling the trident from the glass. Snow crunched loudly as more people gathered. Tommy looked around, suddenly surrounded by Technoblade, Philza, and Niki. He caught sight of Puffy and Tubbo climbing up the shore, the sheep woman running to Gream and hugging him. Tubbo's eyes were locked on Ranboo, who, even without a mouth visible, it was easy to tell the half enderman was smiling.

"Sam, you do remember what I said, right?" The little particles buzzed around him, agitation shared. Sam was trying to hurt his family. Sure, Gream wasn't part of that family, but Tommy sure as hell was. A few particles rushed to the other teen, dancing around him, examining him to make sure he was okay.

Sam was silent, eyes locked on Technoblade. Quackity had talked about getting the pig man into the prison, but it looked like that wasn't going to happen any time soon. That sucked.

"You know Sam, generally, when people are as tyrannical as you, it doesn't end well for them. You might want to watch yourself from now on... or, you know, spend some time on that island you have. Heck, you should probably bring Fran with you." Sam snapped his gaze to Ranboo as his only pet came up. "It would be a real shame if something happened to her." Ranboo took a step back as Sam took a step forward, barely controlling his anger. "Or what about Ponk? You still love him right? Or are you two split up after you cut his arm off with shears?"

Murmurs of shock fell through the group, people looking at each other before looking to the creeper hybrid, who was visibly shaking.

"You also took one of his lives. How many does that leave him with? Two? And no totems~. No revive book either. Even if Dream were here, he'd never waste such energy on Ponk. But you already know that~."

"What the hell are you planning?"

Ranboo's smile seemed to widen, face splitting to finally reveal his mouth, like a twisted version of an enderman. "Nothing. Just paying back a favor! Oh, and if you wouldn't mind, tell Quackity that I'd like to talk to him. Maybe he and I can finally work something out with the cookie stand, you know?"

"What? I haven't-"

"Buh-bye now Sam~. Go on, shoo, both of you." Ranboo made a shooing motion with his trident, voice warbling as he spoke. He watched intently as Sam and Jack finally retreated, glaring at him and the group from the safety of the other side of the tunnel.

Gream suddenly smacked him over the head with a stick.

Ranboo opened his eyes to grass beneath his feet and people scolding someone. Scolding Gream. Why were people scolding Gream and asking if he was okay? Why were Jack and Sam glaring at him from across the tunnel? "Uh, guys, what's going on?"

Everyone fell silent, staring at him.

Phil was the first one to speak. "Are you fucking serious mate? Were you sleepwalking that whole time?"

Ranboo nodded. "I guess..."

"Heh? Sleep walking? Hey, wait a second, Ranboo did you call Snowchester your family?"

"Mate, Techno, now is not the time."

"Ranboo, you sleepwalk?" Niki looked between Phil and him, clearly confused. "How long has this been going on?"

Ranboo shook his head. "I'm... Look, I don't want to talk about it- actually I literally can't- but thanks, whoever woke me up?"

"Oh, that was Dream." Phil stated, motioning to the ghost. Gream looked to Puffy, motioning to Ranboo as if that vindicated him somehow. "He whacked you with a stick. Kind of like I did way back when." Phil mused, snickering to himself at the memory. "Wait... how did you know to do that?" The older man asked, turning to Gream.

Gream seemed to straighten up, almost looking proud of himself. "I didn't! I just got the urge to do something and hitting him with a stick made it go away. Well, made it less prominent." Gream turned to Tommy, tilting his head. "Does Ranboo's sleepwalking have to do with his memory issues?"

"Let's not talk about this, okay? Like Phil said, now is not the time. Are you okay Gream?" Ranboo was more than eager to get the attention off of himself. This was like when Dream announced he was traitor all over again.

Gream nodded, pushing Puffy away. "Yeah, sorry for running."

Tommy smiled, walking over to Gream and slapping his hand on the ghost's back. "No worries mate! We just worried about you. What made you run anyways?"

Gream looked at the group, silent. He knew Tommy was hiding things. They all were. It hurt. They were his friends, so why would they lie to him? It didn't make sense! "It's... It's not important." Gream moved away, heading towards the mansion. Maybe Sam would tell him the truth. If only the two could talk without having anyone interrupt.

[mediocre--writing]

Hello again from the anon who sent the first ask about childhood friends Billy crushing on Steve and venting to his mother. You wrote it amazingly, by the way. I would love to see Steve chasing after Billy in the next part, rather than the other way around. Maybe he doesn’t understand why Billy’s been distant and he misses him. I’m not sure if the timeline is accurate but it could be around the time Steve suspects her of having something with Jonathan so he feels very alone and sad and misses his best friend and Billy wants to cry all over again.

part 1 2

billy wakes up the next morning with the weight of his worries pressing into his chest. in comparison, the weight of his secret has been carefully lifted off his shoulders by his mother and was being kept and cradled with the upmost care.

he was left with a list of chores sitting on the dining table and another note reminding him to pick up his extra work from the school.

before even looking a the list of chores, billy did the bare minimum to make himself look ready enough for the day and made his way to the school.

getting his assignments for his last four periods was easy, they were sitting with the receptionist in a little red folder, but his first period, mrs. kelman, hadn’t given hers in yet.

the secretary, being the lazy ass she is, just waved billy through to go to her room and grab the assignments.

her room, of course, was one of the farthest points from the front entrance of the school, so billy power walked most of the way there, wanting to get out of there before he saw someone—a specific someone—and they started asking questions.

knocking on the door once he’d reached it, mrs. kelman came to answer it, muttering something about him being a heathen and a pain in her ass, but billy didn’t care.

because how could he be so dumb? really, you’re friends with a guy your entire life and forget you share the same first period? and you couldn’t wait another thirty minutes to get your assignments?

god, billy wants to shove his finger in the pencil sharpener.

“you’ve got a book?”

billy is staring out the windows of the back of the classroom when he hears mrs. kelman clear her throat, “do you have your book at home?”

with a small cough, billy assures her his copy of the book is at his house. she proceeds to explain the worksheets in detail while handing him, not one, not two, not three, but four packets of work pages he needs to complete ‘by tuesday, if not, i don’t care what you did do, it’s all a zero.’ psycho bitch.

billy, red folder and packets in hand, practically struts out of the classroom before she can come up with any more work to give him.

he’s not yet half way down the hallway when he hears shoes squeaking behind him, his name being called in a voice he really wants to ignore.

“billy, dude, you didn’t answer my calls last night,”

“went to bed early,” billy responded, not caring to turn around or stop walking. nevertheless, steve caught up to him, rushing to block billy’s path.

“well then, talk to me now, what happened yesterday? you haven’t been the same recently, i’m worried,” steve practically begs billy as they finally stop in the hallway.

“i have chores and about fifty pages of work i need to get started on, steve, so if you don’t mind...” billy stepped to walk away but steve grabbed his elbow.

billy’s packets and papers went down to the floor. “ok, i’m sorry about that, but why won’t you talk to me? and what’s with full naming me? you never call me ‘steve!’”

billy bent down to grab at the papers and shove them into his red folder, cradling them in his arms, “well, steve, sometimes people change and you may never know why. maybe they don’t fit in your life the way you thought they did, maybe you finally see the things the way you probably should have seen them all along,” billy scoffed, “have fun at the party tonight, steve,”

as billy walked off, steve felt sick to his stomach. billy was sarcastic and dry most of the time, but never to steve. with steve, there was never the underlying tone of annoyance there was at school and billy never rushed to get away from anyone, at least not this desperately.

steve was off for the rest of the day. it was hard not to notice the constant fidgeting and how he’d stare off into space in gym, the only class he really liked or actively participated in.

by the end of the day, his fifth period (a class he shared with nancy) steve was completely shut down.

wasn’t listening to the teacher or responding to either nancy or tommy’s attempts at getting his attention. he was just thinking about billy. about what he said. how he said it.

that emphasis on how people ‘don’t fit in your life’ and how angry billy was while saying it. how honest the words sounded coming out of his mouth, like he spoke with his entire chest and wanted steve to hear every single word for what it was.

but steve was never good at dissecting literature and hidden meanings, all he knew was what’s at face value.

and billy’s speech at face value was just a message that billy no longer wanted steve in his life. that he had moved on to bigger, better things.

but this, this felt like something his english teacher would scold him for not seeing the depth to.

and steve worried. worried his way through the rest of the day and into the next. worried all through the friday night party and the weekend. worried the monday billy was still suspended.

worried the entire week while billy was back. while billy still wasn’t talking to him or acknowledging him or even fucking looking at him.

steve had thrown himself into nancy that week, been driving her to school and home every day and had taken her on a date twice on school nights.

both times, without realizing, they’d ended up at the diner billy’s mom worked, the one billy would bus tables for in his free time to make a little extra money.

the first day, a tuesday, they’d been served by the diner lady herself, and steve had chatted like they were old friends.

neither mentioned billy, who was clearly seen in the window to the kitchen cleaning dishes.

the second day, a thursday, steve and nancy had come after the movies to get milkshakes. steve got vanilla and nancy got strawberry.

they didn’t see either billy nor his mom that day.

billy was working, though, steve knew because his unmistakable car was parked in its usual spot to the left corner of the building.

steve searched his entire brain, something he’d never done before, to figure out what billy meant.

he wanted to ask someone who knew more about literature than any teacher he’d ever had, but billy was the person he couldn’t ask for help this time.

steve never realized how much he depended on billy for everything. and he means everything.

date ideas for nancy. billy had the best spots.

how to keep nancy smiling. billy had the best pickup lines and corny jokes to make people smile.

keeping steve from not failing his classes. billy was the only person capable of getting through steve’s thick skull.

girl problems and regular teenage angst. billy always knew what people were feeling and how to react.

steve was so dependent on billy and he was absolutely crumbling without him there.

and nancy was frustrated. steve kept spacing out and ignoring her during dates. he wasn’t as charming as before and he was clingier than usual.

‘an absolute nuisance and is acting so desperate’ were her exact words.

this is what she told jonathan byers one night while they sat with their brothers and their friends at the diner after a long afternoon at the arcade.

this is what billy heard while busing tables behind them, unnoticed, before he opened his big mouth.

“done with that?” billy asked with a sickly sweet smile while pointing down at nancy’s empty milkshake glass.

as she made eye contact, her face burned bright red while she tried to control her facial features, “refill?” was the only thing she could squeak out.

billy kept the smile plastered on his face, “‘course!”

he made sure to spit in her stupid strawberry milkshake before he brought it to her.

“do that again and you won’t be working here anymore, boy,” the owner of the diner—benny—whispered to billy while holding onto his upper arm as he walked away from their table.

“yes, sir,” billy said, fake apologetically, because he grinned while walking back to the kitchen.

damn all the money in the world, nancy wheeler was a bitch and deserved her spit-shake.

billy had come to peace with the fact that steve was straight and in love with nancy.

really, steve couldn’t control who he liked.

ok so he was bitter as hell, but it didn’t stop him from being a decent person.

steve, on the other hand, was in the midst of a gay panic—not that he knew what that was. all steve knew was that he missed his billy—

wait when did ‘billy’ become ‘steve’s billy?’

and since when did steve think about billy more than he thought about his girlfriend? especially while he was alone in his house, laying on his bed.

he should be thinking about his girlfriend. his pretty, sweet, incredibly smart, charming, beautiful, blue-eyed—wait! not billy! think about your girlfriend, dumbass, not your best friend!

steve didn’t sleep that night. he stayed up thinking about billy.

about how it had been almost two weeks since he last hung out with billy and over a month since they’d last talked, like actually had a conversation. about how he didn’t even know what his girlfriend was doing this week, even though he knew she told him.

about how he needs to talk to billy.

he needs to figure out why he’s obsolete in billy’s life now. about why they drifted so quick it’s like something shoved a knife between their friendship.

and so, on that sunday morning, while most of hawkins would be out for church, steve drove over to billy’s house, knocking on the door of people who didn’t wake until noon most sundays.

“oh my god,” steve groaned to himself, knocking harder, “open your fucking door, people,”

the door swung open so fast it scared steve a little, almost knocking on a person—billy’s mom.

“hi,” steve gave an innocent smile, though he was met with a grumpy glare.

“why?” she asked desperately, “you know not to come before 12, 10 if it’s an emergency. it’s sunday, the day of rest, and here i am, not resting,”

“i need to talk to billy,”

“yeah,” she nodded, “see, he’s aware that it’s the day of rest, so he’s still sleeping,”

“i don’t care,” steve was stubborn.

she shrugged, “he punches you it’s not my problem. i’ll be resting so scream really loud if he kills you, the neighbors should hear and they’ll call someone for ‘ya,”

she winked at steve as she made her way back to her room, hoping to god that they’d either make up or make out, and she knew she probably wasn’t sleeping anytime soon. these were her boys she was thinking about, after all.

steve walked quick to billy’s door, turning the knob and moving to billy’s bed, sitting on the edge with his hands in his lap.

“i know you heard me knocking,”

“shhh...”

“billy,” steve groaned as he shifted to look at billy ‘sleeping.’

“he’s asleep. call again later,”

“you are your mother’s child,” steve snapped jokingly.

“well then she’s a smart lady. go away, steve,” billy pulled his pillow over his head.

“no,”

“—mmk,”

“talk to me, billy!”

“no,”

“why not?”

“he’s sleeping,”

“jesus christ!” steve stood up, pulling the pillow off of billy’s head and hitting him with it repeatedly. “get up and talk to me you brat!”

billy sat up after the second hit, but steve just kept going.

“what is wrong with you!?” billy put his hands over his head, pushing the covers off himself.

“me? what’s wrong with me!?” steve dropped the pillow to his side as he made crazy eyes at billy, “you’ve been ignoring me for the past, like, month!”

“no i have not!” billy pointed his finger at steve as a teacher would a student. “you have been the one attached at the fuckin hip with wheeler, so don’t you say that i’m the issue here!”

“i talked to you all the time!”

“about her!” billy stood so he could look steve in the eyes properly. “i don’t give a shit about her, steve! i really, really do not care about her in any way besides whatever concerns you! so i’m so sorry that i’m not very attentive on your hour long rants about how ‘nice and soft her hair is,’”

“don’t mock me!” steve exclaimed, insulted by billy’s bad impression of him.

“she’s a bitch!” billy yelled.

“don’t call her a bitch!”

“ok.” billy shrugged, “she’s a prissy bitch,”

“go fuck yourself,” steve complained, throwing his head back in annoyance.

“no!” billy yelled, taking a step foreward. “she talks about you behind your back. to byers. says you’re desperate and a nuisance. is that the same girl you’re so in love with, steve? huh!?”

steve’s face fell a little at the accusation and his eyes darted around billy’s room.

“liar,”

“when have i ever lied to you?”

steve was quiet.

billy, in a softer voice, “i’m not lying. i just don’t want you to be all in love and her not feel the same way, you’re not good together,”

steve had shuffled around to sit at billy’s desk. “wow thanks,”

“i’m serious,” billy’s face was kinder, not as harsh, “she’s already all grown up, and you’re not. it’s a good thing, steve. you’re happy and carefree and want to... go skydiving and she just wants to... play mahjong at the retirement home,”

steve cracked a smile but it fell just as quick, “she really said all that?”

“i spit in her milkshake and she drank the whole thing,” billy admitted, leaning against the desk next to steve’s legs.

steve smiled, “‘course you did,”

they sat quietly for a minute, taking in billy’s words and the consequences of them.

“i’ve been really worried about you,” steve admitted. “you ignored me for a week then got into a big fight, which you haven’t done since that one boy made fun of me freshman year, and then you didn’t even act like i was around. thought you hated me after what happened in the hall,”

“don’t hate you,” billy leaned closer to steve, knocking their shoulders together, “could never hate you. just... frustrated, i guess?”

“cause of nancy?”

billy shrugged, “yea—“

steve turned to look at him better, “something else, though,” he stared at billy for quite some time, “your dad didn’t call—“

“no!” billy shut down the idea, “no, it’s not him. he’s lone gone now,”

“then what?”

“it’s no—“

“it’s something,” steve insisted.

for as awful as steve was on his own, all alone with nancy or in school, for as bad as he was at reading people, billy was an open book to him. he knew every tell he had and could almost read his mind.

“no,”

“yes,” steve was stern.

“no, steve,”

“talk to me,” steve almost begged.

“no,”

“why do i love you?” steve whispered quietly to himself, making billy’s head shoot up before he remembered that he and steve had been saying ‘i love you’ since two weeks after they met.

“steve, you don’t need to worry about—“

“you?” steve guessed. “i don’t need to worry about you? how is that right when all you do is worry about me?”

“i don’t—“

“you do!” steve had a fire in his heart now, “even when you’re upset with me you’re still a good friend. you still look out for me and spit in my awful girlfriends milkshake while she talks crap about me!

“i don’t get why you do it, billy, because i don’t return it and i didn’t even realize until now!”

“you don’t have to,”

“but i should!” steve was pacing in the middle of billy’s bedroom, “i am the worst to you and you just don’t do anything about it! i love you. i love you so much but i’m such an ass to you and i can’t even—“

“i love you too, steve, we’re there for each other. always have been—“

“no,” steve’s eyebrows went up and he steadied his shaking hands. as he realized it for the first time, steve spoke, “no, i love you, billy,”

billy was frozen.

didn’t move, didn’t breathe, didn’t dare even blink.

it was a dream, it had to be.

“i love you and i want to care about you more than i do. i’m a shitty person as is, but, i want to be there for you like you always have for me,”

“i love you, too,”

“why are you crying?” steve’s eyes widened as he saw the tear tracks down billy’s face, rushing over to wipe them away.

“‘m happy. they’re happy tears,” billy sniffled as he looked up at steve, “promise,”

and they kissed.

steve didn’t even think about nancy. billy didn’t think about the shadow under his door that was most definitely his mom listening in.

they ignored the way it was a really bad kiss, especially for two boys with such reputations that they have, but enjoyed it nonetheless.

billy enjoyed the way steve’s hands pushed his messy curls away from his face and steve enjoyed billy’s hands rubbing his lower back.

they didn’t have to think beyond that moment, didn’t have to worry about a single thing.

their only plans past that moment were for steve to break it off with nancy, then they’d go get chocolate milkshakes and eat cherry pie at the diner.

[adhd-wifi]

Madam Yu is an Amazing Character, Here's Why

What's up guys it's been 57 years but I finally have another meta lmao. Shoutout to those who helped me decide on this one, and for those who wanted the Yi City analysis? Don't worry that's coming soon lol.

So Madam Yu is a really important character in MDZS, and here’s a whole meta post about why I think she’s (in my opinion) the best-written minor character in the entire story. Quick note though, this meta is going to focus on the animation specifically, because that’s my favourite version of Madam Yu (though design-wise, Audio Drama Madam Yu is best lmao). The novel and CQL versions will be mentioned, but I don’t quite remember all the novel details and I don’t really like CQL-Madam Yu, so yeah. ^^; Also, this is talking about her character writing, not her morality as a person if she were real. Feel free to disagree with the post, but here's my take on her and why I love her despite not liking her as a person.

Anyways let's goooooooo. Warning: This is pretty long cuz I have a lot of feelings about Madam Yu ZiYuan. 

Madam Yu is a very well written character, easily the best written female and minor character in my opinion. From her very first appearance, we are shown much of her personality in very little time. In the novel, we are told of her fearsome reputation and why she goes by Madam Yu instead of Madam Jiang, followed by her verbal abuse towards Jiang Cheng in front of the other disciples. In the animation, she is shown talking down to the struggling disciples and scowling as soon as she sees Wei WuXian, despite smiling at Jiang YanLi moments earlier. In CQL, she is shown with a commanding authority over her husband and children, and in all three versions we’re shown how much she hates Wei WuXian. We also see her verbally abusing Jiang Cheng (Wei WuXian in the animation) in her introduction scenes, but also some degree of motherly love showed by how she adjusts Jiang Cheng’s clothes (or showing a kind smile to Jiang YanLi in the animation). 

Her introduction scenes alone tell us the core important traits of her character: That she’s a fierce and prideful woman, that she is a powerful cultivator with a frightening reputation (the animation and CQL also make a point to show ZiDian in her hands in her introductions), and that she is an abusive mother despite having love for her children (but not Wei WuXian). We also instantly understand that SHE is the reason why Jiang Cheng is so uptight about saving face for the Jiang Sect when Wei WuXian never seemed to give a fuck about it (he does, but you know, teen Wei Ying lol), berating Jiang Cheng constantly about how he doesn’t seem to be doing well enough despite being the future Sect Leader. She’s kind of the epitome of the “It’s for your own good” brand of abusive parent. 

There’s a scene in the animation, Episode 6, that strongly shows the discord between her and Jiang FengMian. This scene, though hard to watch cuz my favourite character is Wei Ying, is one of my absolute favourite character building scenes in the whole adaption, which makes me sad that it’s not in the other mediums (that I’m aware of). If you haven’t seen the animation, PLEASE go watch it because gods that’s my favourite version of Madam Yu. 

In this scene, Madam Yu is relaxing alone in one of the pavilions late at night, and Jiang FengMian joins her. She’s civil at first, speaking without any real hostility as she asks what he was doing out so late. He offers her a gift in the form of a jade hairpin, and says he bought it because he thought it was beautiful when she asked why he bought “such a useless thing”. Jiang FengMian then tells her of Jiang YanLi and Jin ZiXuan’s arranged marriage being called off, and while she’s obviously annoyed, she still doesn’t speak with the same fierceness or hostility as she did previously. 

That is, until Jiang FengMian makes a comment about how the children should not be forced into a marriage without love between them.

This is clearly a sore spot for Madam Yu, who immediately becomes hostile. Even the gentle music takes a darker turn for the shift in tone. She then makes a comment about how “Wei Ying always causes trouble”, and subtly looks back to gauge Jiang FengMian’s reaction. As soon as her husband defends Wei WuXian, she lashes out. She accuses Jiang FengMian of treating Wei WuXian better than his own son, and goes as far as to say that if Jiang Cheng had started the fight with Jin ZiXuan, Jiang FengMian wouldn’t have been in such a hurry to help him. In Madam Yu’s defense for this accusation, it’s not completely an unfair assumption, as Jiang FengMian does canonically treat Wei WuXian better, and the fact that he didn’t even try to deny Madam Yu’s accusation is very telling. Madam Yu then laughs bitterly about how Sect Leader Jiang will always be there to clean up Wei Ying’s messes before she walks away without a word, and the scene cuts to Wei WuXian watching them forlornly in the distance. 

I really really love this scene as character building, because from this scene we are very quickly shown Madam Yu’s personal problems, and how she resents her unhappy marriage and blames it on the child she believes took it from her, but the scene also doesn’t hold back on showing that she’s the one being unreasonable and unwilling to talk things out because she lets anger, pride and resentment control her. We see how she was fine and willing to try and talk at first, trying to reason with Jiang FengMian about why the marriage should be carried out, because their daughter does like Jin ZiXuan, and she also wants the Jiang Sect to have good relations to the Jin Sect like the Meishan Yu Sect does due to her close friendship with Madam Jin. This shows that she does care about her daughter’s feelings and that she’s doing what she can to help the Jiang Sect. But as soon as the sore topic of the loveless marriage is brought up, she blames Wei WuXian for it and starts the argument. 

From this scene, we also learn the extent of Jiang FengMian’s favouritism and how it hurt Madam Yu as well as their son, and having Wei WuXian watching their argument creates a nice transition into the next scene where he apologies to Jiang YanLi for ruining the marriage, showing that he feels guilty about the situation and most likely, the discord between his adoptive parents in general. 

As the story goes on, we see that Madam Yu’s problem is basically based ENTIRELY around Wei WuXian. She gets mad at Jiang YanLi for peeling lotus seeds for him. She gets mad at Jiang FengMian for giving Wei WuXian a choice to go or not to go to the Wen doctrine. She gets mad at Jiang Cheng for trying to calm her down and berates him for not being as good as Wei WuXian. As the audience, we are more sympathetic to Wei WuXian’s point of view, and so far Madam Yu comes off as an abusive bitch who hates him for no reason. 

Then after the whole XuanWu incident, we get the scene where Madam Yu storms in on Wei WuXian’s conversation with Jiang FengMian and Jiang Cheng. And holy fuck does it make her seem even more unredeemable than she already was. She comes in right as Jiang FengMian is scolding Jiang Cheng for not upholding the family values, refusing to recognize Wei WuXian’s accomplishment and saying he was bound to bring ruin to the Jiang Sect sooner or later. When Jiang FengMian asks her why she was there, after all it’s common knowledge that she doesn’t care about Wei WuXian’s injuries, she intentionally aggravates him by literally grabbing and shoving Jiang Cheng into her husband’s face, forcefully reminding him that Jiang Cheng was their “true son”. She accuses him of disliking Jiang Cheng because she was the mother, then accuses him of actually being Wei WuXian’s real father. And with that, we instantly know what he whole fucking problem is. 

It’s jealousy. She had been jealous of Jiang FengMian’s feelings for CangSe Sanren this whole time, and took it out on an innocent child who lost his family at a young age. All that unreasonable, misguided resentment, all directed towards a dead woman’s son. A dead woman her husband was most likely in love with, who hadn’t even returned those feelings. 

Personally, when this scene showed up, I decided, “Yup, I fucking hate this bitch.” But I will say this, this scene was also such a good character building scene. It amplified the drama, always necessary in ancient Chinese stories, and was a catalyst that led to a very important plot point: Wei WuXian’s promise to Jiang Cheng. 

Time to talk about how Madam Yu actually functions as a plot-driving character! 

As I just said, this scene drove Wei WuXian to make the promise of becoming Jiang Cheng’s right-hand man in the future, and it was a promise he had fully intended to keep. Madam Yu, and to a lesser extent also Jiang FengMian, were the driving force behind that decision. By now, we as the audience fully understand the core factors of Wei WuXian and Jiang Cheng’s insecurities. Wei WuXian feels like he doesn’t have a proper place in the Jiang Family because of Madam Yu, and Jiang Cheng feels like he’s never doing enough to please either of his parents. The abuse from Madam Yu and the neglect from Jiang FengMian weighs down on Jiang Cheng’s shoulders constantly as he feels unloved by both parents, meanwhile Wei WuXian believes he is what ruined the love for the family just by being alive. 

To me, Madam Yu is the strongest catalyst character in the story because she drives the story’s two central characters, Wei WuXian and Jiang Cheng, in a way that both explains and exploits their insecurities and the decisions they make because of those problems. She is legitimately the primary reason why both boys are so messed up (though Jiang FengMian played no small part in that too), and we feel the effects of her actions on the two of them long after she's dead. Which brings us to the big topic of her death. 

Now, let's be real, Madam Yu was still kind of a fridged woman like Wen Qing and Jiang YanLi. However, in my opinion she was at the very least a fridged woman done right. The reason for this is that both Wen Qing and Jiang YanLi were overall much weaker characters (especially in the novel) and essentially both died for no real reason except to cause more tragedy and pain for Wei WuXian to push him to his death. They both only died to set up Wei Ying's death, which is why I'm furious about that, but that's for another post (let me know if y'all want it lol). But Madam Yu's death? Her death was far, far more significant and there's a huge reason why a lot of fans, regardless of which adaptation they follow, agree that Madam Yu's last scenes were her best ones. 

Now, onto the analysis of the massacre of Lotus Pier. It started with Wang LingJiao’s pompous ass waltzing in and demanding that they chop off Wei WuXian’s hand and submit to the Wen Sect, even after Madam Yu violently lashed out at Wei WuXian with ZiDian to the point where he shouldn’t have been able to move for days (the animation doesn't agree though cuz they wanted a cool fight scene lmao). This scene is very interesting for Madam Yu’s character, because you can interpret it in two ways; one that makes Madam Yu seem to hold SOME sympathy for Wei WuXian as a member of the Jiang Sect, or another that shows her tactical insight as well as her pride for her Sect and status, or even both. Later in the story, Wen Qing reveals that Madam Yu hadn’t actually hurt Wei WuXian as badly as she claimed, and we can interpret this as either her not truly wanting to cause lasting damage to Wei WuXian, or that she knew there would be a fight regardless and made sure Wei WuXian would be able to fight the Wens off along with her and Jiang Cheng. Madam Yu has previously made it clear that she believes in Wei WuXian’s skills in combat and cultivation, shown in her berating comparison of him and Jiang Cheng, so it would make sense for her to keep one of the Jiang Sect’s strongest fighters on his feet while putting on a show for Wang LingJiao in case it was enough to satisfy the Wens into leaving them alone for the time being (while probably finally having an excuse to act violently against the poor kid she hates maybe). Personally, I do think it is more of the latter, but I also don’t think Madam Yu is one to turn to physical abuse too much. Yes, she slapped Jiang Cheng in the shoulder in the novel introduction and shoves him around when she’s angry, but aside from that we have no reason to believe she actively and frequently engages in physical abuse against them as they never seem to be scared of her in that way, and Jiang Cheng was particularly horrified and scared when she did hit Wei WuXian in that scene with Wang LingJiao, so I lean towards believing it was a rare occurrence (not that emotional abuse really any better, but you know.) 

Quick bonus point, I love how in CQL she just nods at JinZhu and YinZhu and they immediately know what to do, and also when she trusted them to hold Wen ZhuLiu off while she escaped with the boys. It really shows how close the three of them are despite being mistress and servants, having grown up and trained together. JinZhu and YinZhu are criminally under-utilised and I will be forever bitter about it.

In the scene that follows, the animation has my whole heart once again. Mostly because it was the best fight scene don’t @ me, but also because it showed her fighting side by side with Jiang Cheng and Wei WuXian. Madam Yu took the frontline first, taking out the large group headed towards them before letting the boys rush forward ahead of her to fight, only taking over the main fight when Wen ZhuLiu entered the fray. During their battle, Wen ZhuLiu used the body of a dead Wen to block her attack, blinding her with blood as she paused in shock at the unexpected action. Realizing she could not win the unfair fight, Madam Yu quickly switched tactics and escaped, aiming to make sure that the Jiang heir survived. I really liked seeing her fight alongside them, even though it doesn’t totally make sense with Wei WuXian’s injury, because it does give a better look into them being able to function as combat partners. It is implied that Madam Yu trained them more than Jiang FengMian did and that'sthe headcanon I go for myself, so I enjoyed that scene a lot. Then comes her biggest defining moment, her final scene with Jiang Cheng and Wei WuXian. Please note: This is 100% the animation and why anime-Madam Yu is best Madam Yu.

Madam Yu shoves Wei WuXian into a boat, screaming that this was all his fault. She knows it’s over, that there’s no chance of winning this fight, so she gives ZiDian to Jiang Cheng, and tells him, in the softest voice we’ve ever heard from her, to leave. When Jiang Cheng starts begging her to escape with them, she gives into her emotions and pulls her son in for a hug, telling him he’s a good child. Jiang Cheng is shocked, likely never having received her affection like this before. Here, Madam Yu has no reason to hide her feelings anymore, because she knows she's going to die, and she knows she cannot bear to flee Lotus Pier as she is the Jiang Matriarch and has her pride. She spares Wei WuXian, but I don't think it's because she wants him to live. I think she spared him to ensure her hot-headed son will have someone to protect him, because she knows that Jiang Cheng will absolutely try to save her, and because she fully believes that Wei WuXian absolutely will fulfill that promise. She knows Wei WuXian is loyal to the Sect, and more importantly, to Jiang Cheng. She knows that while Wei WuXian is more reckless and impulsive, Jiang Cheng is the one who reacts more emotionally. Just like herself. When demanding that Wei WuXian give his life to protect Jiang Cheng, she’s not simply giving him an order as a master to a servant. She was telling him, in her own way, that she cannot protect Jiang Cheng as she believed she was doing any longer, and entrusts that task to Wei WuXian, because he’s the only person who can do so. In this very moment, she knows she’s walking to her death, and she knows she would never see her children again, and doesn’t know if her husband would even return for her, because she genuinely believes she’s unloved by him. So, she gives her family to Wei WuXian in the worst way possible, and we see her biggest flaw of her unyielding pride also being her greatest strength as she fights to protect her family and home one last time.

This scene, this GODDAMN scene, is Madam Yu’s most defining moment as a catalyst character, because now her character has served its full purpose. It’s the moment both we as the audience, AND Wei WuXian and Jiang Cheng, see that she is more than an abusive, jealous mother. She is more than just prideful and fierce. She’s also a “real” person with emotions and problems she never managed to work out, but did truly love her son, her family, her sect. But she was also never going to be redeemed, because she refused to face her own demons even to the very end. She was such a prideful and stubborn person, that she died upright, holding on to her sword in a refusal to kneel to the Wens. And for Jiang Cheng, to see the proudest, most powerful person he knew, dead and disrespected by Wen Chao and Wang LingJiao, well, can you blame him for snapping? 

Madam Yu’s presence in the story was primarily to set up the conflict between Jiang Cheng and Wei WuXian. Her problems, her abuse, caused them to develop insecurities that became their worst flaws, with Jiang Cheng always feeling inferior because she always told him he was inferior, and with Wei WuXian’s guilt and tendency to blame himself for anything that goes wrong around him. Jiang FengMian’s lousy parenting and neglect (y'all want an analysis on him too cuz he's honestly a really interesting take on a bad parent imo), which is also a form of emotional abuse by the way, shouldn’t be ignored, but Madam Yu is simply the better and more impactful character. We see how her starting arguments with Jiang FengMian push the boys into heartfelt talks, leading to the promise between them before Lotus Pier fell. We see how she set up Wei WuXian’s feeling of owing an unpayable debt to the Jiang Sect, and to her for sparing his life to protect her son. But she also wasn’t simply a plot-device-abusive character type. She is fully shown to have her own motivations, her own problems unique to her, and her own strengths and flaws in ways that a lot of other minor characters don’t get, especially in the animation. Hell, not even Jiang YanLi, a character supposedly being more significant than her, got such an in-depth character. Madam Yu isn’t a developed character by any means, but she has a lot of depth, and the impact she left on both the audience and the canon characters is felt long after she’s dead. When Jiang Cheng and Wei WuXian break things off, Jiang Cheng talks about how Wei WuXian is the perfect disciple of the Jiang Sect, and that leads to Wei WuXian leaving so he “doesn’t cause them any more trouble”. Wei WuXian cannot abandon the ideals of the man who took him in all those years ago, but he also felt that he had given his all to Jiang Cheng already in his golden core, and thus he felt that he should respect Madam Yu’s presumed wishes and stop causing more problems for them. Even far, far later on, Wei WuXian still feels guilt towards her and Jiang FengMian’s death and wishes to pay respects, but doesn’t argue with Jiang Cheng when he’s told that he doesn’t deserve even that. And honestly, we also just know who’s fault that unreasonable guilt really is. 

I say Madam Yu is the best minor character, and a fridged character done right, because she genuinely felt like an actual person, an actual abusive mother but also a human being with her own complex feelings while also being an overall bad person who (arguably) needed to be out of the protagonist's life. To get a little personal for a moment, Madam Yu strongly reminds me of my own mother, who is quite emotionally abusive, though not as extreme, which might have made me feel more realism from her than most other minor characters and definitely made me think that MXTX has some personal experiences herself. The animation is the best at this, because her tones and expressions change drastically here and there when it’s needed, plus her voice actress does such an outstanding job conveying her emotions instead of just shouting everything like the novel and CQL presents it, but she maintains her pride, the most defining trait, both her greatest strength and greatest flaw, until she was no longer needed in the story. A lot of stories with such a character tend to give them an emotional breakdown before they end their arc, but Madam Yu had none of that (...except...in CQL...I guess...yeah that’s why I don’t like that one). Her death was to push the story and the motivations of two male characters forward, and I agree that it’s not fantastic given that most other women died within the same story for male plot progress, but her death actually felt, to me at least, like it also had a genuine purpose to her own character as well as the plot. Wen Qing’s death was heartbreaking to me because I love her and she is my QUEEN, but narratively pointless especially since Wen Ning came back and in the end she was only really there to perform the golden core transfer. Jiang YanLi’s death was just...utterly unnecessary man pain. I have made no secret of hating how her death was handled. 

With Madam Yu, I personally really liked that she essentially was an irredeemable person that would never change herself out of pride so she almost needed to die, but was still human nonetheless. And going by MDZS’s heavy theme of grey morality, she fits the theme perfectly. And that’s why, while Madam Yu may be an abusive and terrible person, she’s easily one of the strongest characters in the whole story, right up there with Wei WuXian, Jiang Cheng, and Jin GuangYao in my opinion. 

I hope y’all enjoyed this monster of a post of me rambling about the angry purple lady.

[ot3-watch]

Episode 3: The Wedding Job

And so we begin the “The Network Fucked Up” saga with episode 7 which is SUPPOSED to be episode 3. 

Huge men drinking out of tiny teacups is hilarious and will never stop being so. 

Nate, stop being such a control freak. “I thought I pick the clients” DUDE CHILL

“No more, no less” honey you getting much more

“We’ll get back to you” FUCK YOU NATE

PARKER LOVES KIDS EPISODE 1

NATE IF YOU HAD FOUND THIS CASE YOU’D TAKE IT IN AN INSTANT YOU’RE JUST MAD YOU DIDN’T FIND IT

FBI!!! TAGGERT AND MCSWEETEN!! AHH OKAY I LOVE THEM

“They just need validation” BITCH ME TOO THE FUCK

TODAY IN THEY MAKE PEOPLE LOOK UNNECESSARILY STUPID

Hardison is so gregarious it’s so amazing to watch

“I don’t have to type anything right” oh my god

TAPES! “HARDISON HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO WALK OUT OF THE FBI OFFICES WITH A BOX FULL OF TAPES?” “pUNCH someBODY!” “oh I’m gonna PUNCH SOMEBODY” God i love them

Jersey Boys I can’t, it’s terrible guys. Do mobsters have no taste

Oh look, it’s that woman who’s in EVERYTHING

What is Parker wearing on her head

Everyone talks about bridezillas, but no one talks about mother of the bridezillas. 

WHY DIDN’T THEY HIRE A WEDDING PLANNER IN THE FIRST PLACE

SOPHIE FOCUSING ON HER PERSONAL PROBLEMS WITH NATE INSTEAD OF THE JOB EPISODE 1

ELIOT THE CHEF EPISODE 1

HOLY SHIT I LOVE HIM

ELIOT GETTING TOO ATTACHED TO HIS COVER STORY AND FORGETTING ABOUT THE JOB EPISODE 1

He’s so mad that she doesn’t like it I lovehim I LOVE HIM I FUCKING LOVE ELIOT SPENCER

“Imagine if we had bugs planted all over the house” WHY THE FUCK DON’T YOU

How the fuck is the dress so ugly? WHY IS THAT WHAT THEY WANT? WHO WEARS PINK RUCHED SATIN WITH BLUE FLOWERS

I mean, other than, like, me @6 years old. But really, no one should be wearing the clothes I wore at 6 years old. 

Also it’s just.. the worst length. Like if it was a long dress it might be better. 

Nate the pastor episode 1

God that future son in law seems like a dream guy I love him

Maria Moscone deserves better than her scumbag parents let’s be real

SOPHIE TAKING THINGS TOO PERSONALLY AND GETTING THE WAY OF THE JOB

THIS!!! THIS IS WHY THE NETWORK ORDER MAKES NO SENSE!!! THIS HERE’S AN AIMEE REFERENCE BUT IF THEY’D ALREADY DONE THE TWO HORSE JOB, HARDISON WOULD’VE KNOWN ABOUT HER AND NOT ASKED

“What did you do?” “Me? I liberated CROATIA!” *angry apple bite* i CAN’T I LOVE HIM

DO PEOPLE NOT KNOW PARKER ISN’T A BRIDESMAID? HOW IS THAT DRESS FOOLING ANYONE

Hardison in love with Parker is so pure

… Okay but shouldn’t maria and blonde n’ bitchy know that Parker isn’t a bridesmaid? Wouldn’t the other bridesmaids know? Why does no one in the wedding party question ANYTHING?

HARDISON’S SCARF THOUGH

WHY IS HER MOTHER WEARING WHITE?? WHO WEARS WHITE TO A WEDDING WTF

MARIA MOSCONE DESERVES BETTER

SOPHIE FUCK OFF!! WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS RIGHT NOW?? THIS ISN’T IMPORTANT SOPHIE!! SOPHIE STOP IT!! SOPHIE SHUT UP!

M A R I A M O S C O N E D E S E R V E S B E T T E R

The Butcher of Kiev is the best subplot of this episode but HOW THE FUCK DID THEY ALL KNOW HE AND ELIOT HAD A PAST

Sophie is so fucking annoying in this episode I hate her right now

THESE PEACHES AREN’T GONNA POACH THEMSELVES PARKER

OH MY GOD NATE SHUT UP

NATE SHUT UP

NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR THIS NATE

SHUT THE FUCK UP NATE

THIS ISN’T ABOUT YOU NATE

“In my day, no one would do business at their daughter’s wedding” WELL THEN DON’T DO BUSINESS 

Parker’s face smushed against the glass is great

Ahh yes, you don’t get the money so you SHOOT THE BRIDE. Because THAT’s not gonna cause a scene and get you arrested. 

OK be honest is there anyone who was surprised by the wife being responsible? Bc I’m not

Eliot’s face is like “TFW the guy whose face you burned shows up at a wedding you’re supposed to be pretending to but actually are catering with a cleaver and backup and the overwhelming urge to kill you”

I know that’s super specific but that’s what it is

Parker’s really good at playing drunk

But also, why did they not question what she was doing behind the curtain

Like she just happened to appear after they were finished talking about VERY ILLEGAL THINGS and they aren’t at all suspicious?

Also, Parker using Hardison as a cover is just… I love it. 

You’re laughing. Eliot brought a whisk to a knife fight and you’re laughing. 

The saddest part is Eliot has any sort of cooking implement. You should be terrified right now

Okay so let me get this straight. A guy is StrANGLING you, you get your hands on a rolling pin, and your instinct isn’t, “hey, I can use this rolling pin to clobber him over the head,” the instinct is “Let me use this rolling pin to get my hands on the appetizers?” Like, yes, lemon juice, but also ROLLING PINS ARE HEAVY AND YOU COULD AT LEAST KNOCK THE GUY OUT

But no, let me shove fucking MUSHROOMS in his eyes because otherwise how else would we get the symmetry of the butcher yelling “IT BUUUURRRNNNNSS” both times he fights Eliot

And then he uses the fucking serving tray to bonk him on the head INSTEAD OF THE DUCKING ROLLING PIN

LIKE SERIOUSLY HAVE YOU EVER USED A ROLLING PIN AS A WEAPON

I’M NOT SAYING I HAVE BUT OUCH

Like, just… If I had a choice between being hit over the head with a thin sheet of metal or a log of wood with metal inside it, I’d pick the sheet, because at least that one has some give. 

“It’s the lemon juice” How does Eliot make that sound badass

“You just kill a guy with an appetizer?” How the FUCK WOULD YOU KNOW THAT??

WHY DOES NO ONE ASSUME A ROLLING PIN WOULD BE AN OKAY WEAPON

Or like LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE IN THAT KITCHEN. THERE ARE CAST IRON PANS IN THAT KITCHEN. Or just liek… regular pans. HAVE YOU EVER DROPPED A NONSTICK PAN ON YOUR FOOT? IT FUCKING HURTS?? WHY IS THE APPETIZER YOUR FIRST INSTINCT NATE

Also, he’s clearly not dead. What the fuck

“I don’t know, maybe” I KNOW AND tHE ANSWER IS NO YOU OBVIOUSLY DIDN”T

...who honeymoons in Kansas? Is that a thing? 

They are a very cute couple i’ve gotta be honest

“Exactly what denomination are you reverend?” He isn’t

“You’re not Mary Poppins, youre a bitch” Okay pot. Okay. 

LITERALLY THAT FUCKING HANDBAG WOULD AHVE MADE A BETTER WEAPON THAN THE MUSHROOMS

How does Hardison remember all those numbers? He didn’t even hear a bunch of them, but he takes the book out so slowly? DOES HARDISON HAVE AN EIDETIC MEMORY? WHY IS THAT NOT A PLOT POINT MORE OFTEN

Like I’m just saying, someone tries to tell me their phone number more than 3-4 numbers at a time and I get confused. But hardison just… remembers

What happened to the cash? The daughter gets the fucking wedding present she DESERVES for putting up with her awful parents that’s what

Hardison appreciating Eliot’s cooking is EVERYTHING

“I left him five dollars for socks” Well everyone needs socks. 

Okay wait I just had a thought

If Nate isn’t an actual Reverend, is that marriage even legal? Does Nate just happen to also be a legally ordained minister? Did they have to get him an online ordainment? WhY did we not see that scene? WHAT IF HE’S NOT AND THEY AREN’T ACTUALLY MARRIED

And today on “I clearly think far too much about these things”

PARKER WIth KIDS IS EVERYTHING

Eliot cooking for his family I love it

ELIOT IN A TANK TOP I LOVE IT

Was Eliot’s arms the most important part of this scene? Probably not

Is it the only thing I care about? ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY

I”M A SIMPLE GIRL AND HE HAS VERY NICE ARMS OKAY

Final thoughts: 9/10. I love this episode so much guys. Points off because really who the fuck wears white to a wedding. I know that’s the point but its very off putting. Also for the bridesmaid dresses because they were ugly as sin. Actual point off for the wife secretly being awful. Very predictable, ew. Extra points for Chef!Eliot. Extra points for Eliot’s arms. Points off for Nate and Sophie being completely insufferable. Extra points for Parker being great in this episode. Points off for the FUCKING ROLLING PIN YES I’M STILL ANGRY DONT @ ME. Extra points for Eliot killing a man with an appetizer because it’s still funny. Extra points for no IYS or Sam references THANK THE FUCKING LORD. Or, at least, if there was, i didn’t notice, meaning it wasn’t egregious so whatever. So yeah, anyway I really fucking love this episode. 

IYS Count: 2/3

Sam Count: 2/3  AND WE ARE ALL BETTER OFF FOR IT

[thehumantrampoline]

So I really love your passion about Sherlock Holmes, I only know it through adaptations as I'm not very good with reading mysteries (I can deal with watching because I can see the time till the end of the episode/movie and know when it's all going to be revealed, but trying to read one makes me feel dumb as none of the threads come together until the characters literally tie them together for me and when I get to the reveal depends entirely on my love of reading not wandering off at a moment's notice and vanishing for 6+ months). But anyway, what other characters do you feel get woefully over or under used in adaptations?

okay okay okay, first, get that, been there, 100% feel you, but since you didn't mention which adaptations you'd seen and that tiktok did definitely make its way out of Granada fan tumblr, I am legally required to tell you that if you want an actual good adaptation that's close to the stories, you should check out the 80s Granada TV show. it doesn't queerbait, because it was the 80s and nobody was interested in baiting queers yet, but it's very gay anyway simply because Holmes and Watson clearly care about and respect each other, and Jeremy Brett who played Holmes was BISEXUALLLL and he brought that queer energy!!! he knew what the fuck he was doing with those eyes!!!!!!! okay okay anyway

nearly all of Doyle's characters are one offs because he gave no fucks about continuity, so if you're adapting story to story like Granada, technically nobody is overused or underused. But adaptations which take the stories as a creative jumping off place, like……… Well, we'll say elementary, because that's a good one, and leave the rest unsaid -- love to latch onto Irene Adler and make her a recurring sexy menace when all she really wanted to do was fuck off and get married. John Clay DESERVES her recurring menace role, although I do want to clarify that I am NOT advocating for him as an adaptational love interest. Fanfic, like........... maybe lol, I'd read it, but the only LI I want to see in an adaptation is the one who wrote stories about him for decades!!!!!

anyway, none of this was the actual question. Lestrade isn't overused as a character but he is overused as a minor antagonist. They are friends, goddammit! Holmes is a little cheeky sometimes but he likes Lestrade and Lestrade has specifically communicated that he and Scotland Yard appreciate and respect Holmes!! and Holmes almost cried about it!!! as for minor characters I'd like to see more of, I love my girl Kitty Winter from "the illustrious client," she gets royally fucked over by a predator and when Holmes offers her an opportunity to wreck his life she says HELL YES and I have some ideas of my own I'd like to bring to the table, how about I throw ACID on his FACE, amazing stupendous incredible. Most of his female clients are tough as nails tbh, they have to be to come to a private detective with a problem the police won't listen to. Honorary mention to Violet Smith of "the solitary cyclist," like, if I had to pick one lesbian coded bitch to put my money on??? She's an Avid Bicycle Rider, I'm just saying, and the guts it takes to turn your bike around and chase your stalker has me swooning, date me Violet Smith, we both know your fiancé is made up