#look he has to live up to his disaster gay reputation

[noa-ciharu]

Subaru gets drunk and makes it Karen's problem crack fic

Thanks to Twitter idea of Karen making mistake of her life and inviting Subaru out for a drink wormed into my mind. Ofc I was insane enough to buy Smirnoff, get tipsy myself and write this crack fic. Absolute insanity, Subaru gets wasted for first time and can't shut up about dick he's not getting

Broke is fixing Subaru, woke bullying Seishirou and bespoke bullying Subaru (and Karen who has to deal with this depressed repressed horny drunk for first time in his life light-weight gay mess)

I even made a moodboard for drunk Subaru :D (fic is below)

Karen took a sip of her drink and leaned into bar stool. She side-eyed her drinking partner who was in sorry state after just one shot, sighed and wondered how she roped herself into this mess in the first place.

For past few weeks she’s been stopping by Seal’s dorm on semi-regular basis; just to make sure kids were alright, as much as circumstances allowed. Every now and then she ran into Subaru there; one needn’t be a genius to figure out guy was moping non-stop. He could use a shoulder to cry on, good dicking down or getting wasted, Karen diagnosed; as they were mere acquaintances she kept those thoughts private. Rest of Seals were children, of course they couldn’t offer too much reassurance to adult who by all indications went to hell and back; on other hand Karen barely knew anything about Subaru’s private life, hence it wasn’t her place to tell him what to do.

Alas, during today’s visit Karen ran into Subaru again. If possible he was in even worse state than usual. After battle with other side’s Kamui yesterday their Kamui was in yet another coma; maybe Subaru was extra down in dumps because of Kamui’s state or maybe for having noone to mop together with. Something about friendship goals. Really, if that’s how Kamui was emotionally relying on maybe they should all book graveyard spots on time; so much for emotional support, Subaru couldn’t even support himself.

Either way, Karen took pity and invited Subaru out for a drink. He looked like he needed a few. Impulsive decision but then again, she didn’t expect him to say yes anyways; mere courtesy, so she could tell herself later on that she at least tried bonding with third adult in their group. Imagine her shock when he agreed right of the bat – and even suggested that drinking night is tonight.

That’s how they ended in a pub close to Clamp campus. And that’s how after first drink Karen began questioning all her life choices that led her to the point where she had to play a bartender therapist to this melancholic therapist by occupation who happened to be in dire need of real therapist.

Subaru slumped over counter after just one glass of sake. He toyed with glass’ rim, looked like he was about to cry. Karen internally cursed herself again; cursed Subaru as well for putting her in awkward situation. Just what could happen to a man to reduce him to this moping mess? Love problems? Shitty life situation? Poverty? No, he was head of prestige clan, no way he had money issues. Death in family? Possibly given how he related to Kamui’s tragic losses. Karen hopped it ain’t that one; she could deal with love problems, her line of work made her more perceptive of any underlining emotional issues.

She dealt with countless types of men before, only natural Karen was confident she could handle a melancholic repressed gay.

Karen had no idea how wrong she was.

“Is this your first time trying sake? How do you like it?”, she tried with small talk. Had to start somewhere.

“I miss him”, Subaru murmured wistfully, completely ignored her question. Actually there was no need for verbal answer at all, his reaction spoke volumes.

Ah shit here we go. Karen took a sip of gin, mentally prepared herself for another round of soft parenting an emotional messed up man; only difference from her clients being that this one had zero interest in getting into her pants, just the opposite – wanted someone to get into his. Maybe Subaru needed both to get wasted and laid. Surely that combination would fix him.

“Miss who?”

“Seishirou-san…”

Like name meant anything. Karen said nothing at first, nursed her drink and waited for Subaru to elaborate. He didn’t. Just kept on yearningly gazing at almost empty glass as if that was his ex. Unbelievable. Karen definitely needed another shot; preferably something strong. For longest time she assumed there was noone with more internalized issues than her but next to Subaru she felt like common sense on two legs.

“Your ex boyfriend I assume?”, she asked finally in hope of breaking awkward silence. What to say, amazing drinking buddy.

“It’s… complicated”, Subaru murmured.

Of course it is, otherwise they wouldn’t be here. God forbid anything was simple with this mess in adult form to her left. Karen sighed and took a shot of dry gin. Ugh, so heavy on stomach, throat stung – exactly what she need to survive a night.

“If only we d-dated back then ... at least he would have dicked me down good”, Subaru complained with same face and tone one might use to describe weather.

Good thing she wasn’t drinking anything, otherwise she would have spit it all out. Listening to prestige clan head drunk whining he’s not getting enough sex surely wasn’t on Karen’s to-do list. Who would have thought someone as refined and modest as Subaru was just a repressed hormonal mess in a worn out coat and Balenciaga turtleneck; money surely wasn’t an issue but everything else was. Beware the quiet ones indeed. Karen had a hunch Kamui was following Subaru in steps. At least boy had higher chances of getting laid given how his battles with other Kamui looked.

“How do I get him to fuck me?”, Subaru yelp a tad bit too loudly and captured everyone's attention. Great, now everyone knew she was drinking with a gay man; so much for hoping for a peaceful night without getting hit on. So much for that. On brighter side maybe some of those suitors would try wooing Subaru instead of her.

“How much submissive and breedable I need to become?”, he complained further and reached for a glass. None of those words were in bible.

Instead of picking the glass up Subaru flipped it over; alcohol poured over counter. Subaru murmured sorry and cleaned the counter – with bare hand. Unbelievable. Never before has she seen such light-weight. But then again, that depended on food intake and general experience with alcohol; not only Subaru had none but also he struck as someone to live on ramen and tea.

There was no other - this night is mistake of a lifetime. All the men of quality were either taken or gay but Karen wasn’t really sure where to put Subaru there. Of quality part was… disputable.

Karen fetched a napkin and shoved into Subaru’s hand. He thanked her and managed to clean the counter before bartender showed up. If someone told her she’d be babysitting a twenty something man she would have laughed in their face. And yet here she was, doing precisely that.

Alas, consideration got the best of her - “Are you alright Subaru-san?”

“No, I need him to destroy me”

“Like in sheets or in streets?” - Karen asked hesitantly, unsure if she actually wanted to know.

“Yes”, Subaru deadpanned.

Yes, she definitely didn’t want to know.

Bartender walked to their side of bar. Karen took a moment to get herself another shot; heaven knows she’ll be needing it. Subaru also took note of that, apparently he wanted another round too. Karen was torn between being only responsible adult here and letting ambulance take Subaru home. Not to deny it, temptation to do the latter was high.

“Another one of these transparent things”, Subaru asked assuredly, like there weren’t dozen of spirits that fit that description.

“What?”

In turn Subaru raised glass up to bartender’s face to clarify - “This”

Glass was empty.

Karen wished second-hand embarrassment was strong enough to kill them both. Alas, it wasn’t.

“Just get him something light”, she cut in before Subaru could order Smirnoff and end up in newspapers.

He eased cigarette pack out of coat and lit one. Offered her one as well; she accepted. Subaru took a drag, then sighed and leaned against the counter. His expression was… tragic, to say the least. Really, he looked like his whole family died or something; despondency so primordial one couldn’t imagine him not being sad. Maybe she underestimated herself when she invited Subaru out; maybe this truly was a mess in human form that couldn’t be fixed - just made worse. Challenging but not impossible.

Subaru sighed, raked fingers through hair and took another puff. “Like all the repressed horniness of all these years struck me at once”, he whined and shook head in utter disbelief.

Ah, classic case of depressed repressed mid twenties man. Guy who wanted to believe he can’t keep own needs in check all until he could no longer – and that’s how all kinks known and unknown to mankind get unleashed. Karen had the unfortunate of meeting fair share of those in her line of work but something told her Subaru was league on his own.

“I must get railed before the dawn or I’ll die out of sexual frustration”

Noone ever died of that – Karen almost countered but kept argument behind teeth. Never say never and she’d rather not be the one to break the news to Seals, let alone explain why one fo their strongest met his maker and that he’s nowhere pure and demure as he appeared. How can she tell Aoki only other “adult” in group died because he didn’t get dicked down? Karen facepalmed and reached for her drink; it simply wasn’t doing it for her, she was still too sober for this.

On other hand, finding Subaru a man for the night could turn out to be interesting. Despite being the absolute worst drunk ever, he was still attractive; plus that horny sad puppy dog look would only allure sugar daddies like moth to the flame. Sure, he’s not yet over his ex but nothing a good fuck couldn’t fix.

“Best way to get over a man is to get under another. I’m sure we can find you something here”, Karen offered back and hoped Subaru will be sensible about his choices. Who knows where his ex even was? Would he even want Subaru back? Really, the sooner he gives dating others a try the higher chances of recovering from this ridiculous obsessiveness were.

And of course – curing the pinning diaster gay syndrome. But Karen didn’t have high hopes of that ever being fixed.

“I don’t want something”, Subaru protested right away. Because of course he would; of course nothing in Karen’s life can go easy, not even finding a drinking buddy. She was here to have a good time and what did she get? Role of a babysitter. Karen couldn’t wait until Sorata and Yuzuriha twenty so she could take them out drinking, they’d be far more interesting company.

“I want… him” – Subaru added yearningly and glanced up, kicked puppy look on face.

Karen was half tempted to ask just who that guy was so she could meet that ultimate alpha male capable of causing this much psychological damage. Whoever that guy is he is a pro at ‘making him worse’ for sure. Karen didn’t dare ask what they broke over about; no amount of dry vodka would make her forget.

“His dick or nothing” - Subaru puffed with absolute firmness and reached for tequila. Damn, she told bartender to bring him something light; couldn’t blame the guy for wanting to profit on someone like Subaru who’ll surely give a big tip.

Now Karen had to meet this ‘Mr. magical big dick’ guy. Frankly speaking, taking Subaru’s sorry mental and emotional state into account she has a hunch big dick title would be more allegorical derogatory one than literal. Not like she could ask Subaru just how endowed his ex was.

“How do you know his dick is so good when you never felt it?”

The moment words left Karen’s lips she knew she fucked up. Subaru whimpered and teared up immediately; sniffed once more and rubbed eyes with back of hand. Great, now on top of being messy horny drunk he’ll turn into sobbing one, cry a river here and get them permanently banned from this bar. She loved this place!

Rule no.1: never remind Subaru that he never got fucked by his bastard ex.

“I know it’s good. I know it…”, Subaru sniffed further, sulked and took a smoke so deep he started coughing.

Rule no.2: never bring his ex’s bedroom skills he didn’t even get taste of into question.

“Alright alright, whatever you insist”, Karen tapped his back and changed the topic. “How he looks like? Maybe we can find someone similar”

“He’s hot”, Subaru purred out, love-struck look on face. Unbelievable.

Rule no.3: just play on a safe side and never ask Subaru anything about his ex. It’s for mutual benefit.

Being so dazed Subaru didn’t notice where he wasn't putting out his cigarette; so he ended up dowsing it on back of own hand. He hissed at first, then closed eyes and moaned. Karen hoped she heard it wrong due to loud music but pleasured look on Subaru’s face betrayed everything.

“Damn that felt so good, I wish he’d do that to me”, he moaned once more, completely unabashed.

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that”

True she could be quite kinky herself when partner whets her appetite but it seemed Subaru’s masochistic possibly fatal kinks had no limits. Awkward really. All in all now she was entirely sure she and Aoki were only adults among Seals.

Subaru chugged remaining tequila, hissed and raised empty glass up in air. Karen regretted not bringing a camera or something just so she could show a sober Subaru how loose his drunk self is. He’d wish Earth opens and swallows him whole so he’d get drink to forget and only open a vicious cycle. Also it’d serve a good advertisement what happens when you’re leading a repressed depressed life as a gay man. Kamui needed to see this cautionary tale and world will get saved immediately.

He sighed again with pensive look. “His shoulders are so wide he has to walk sideways through doors”, Subaru praised (or so Karen assumed although there was nothing admirable about being built like a triangle?) his ex and raised empty glass to lips. Then pouted once he realized no alcohol was left. Karen tried visualizing Subaru’s ex but all that her mind came up with was a red colored triangle; red as all the flags this disaster gay must have missed.

“Damn I wish he lends me that shoulder to put legs on whenever I’m sad”

Wait, wasn’t phrase to shoulder to lean on? Whatever makes Subaru happy she gue – wait wait, is that even possible for him? Karen tried visualizing Subaru happy but image came just as easy his absolute green flag ex boyfriend.

Meaning things didn’t add up. “But you’re always sad?”, she addressed Subaru with puzzled look.

“Precisely”

Karen glanced at all alcohol bottles in distance. Maybe if she chugged them all she won’t remember any of Subaru’s ramblings. Apparently bartender noticed her look as he returned to their counter.

“Boy, shot of jack” – she ordered right away. God knows she’ll be needing it. Plus bill is on Subaru’s tab so more reasons to get absolutely smashed. Karma.

“And for me -”

“- only thing you’re getting is water Subaru-san”

She was referring to him with ‘san’ only due to clan head title; given what Karen saw and heard so far ‘kun’ would be far more appropriate.

Subaru moped a bit at being denied more alcohol. Although who was she to tell him, a grown up (however just in name and ID card that should get revoked) man, when enough is enough? For some reason Subaru listened to her; for whole five minutes however before he ordered another gin. He chugged it before bartender even put drink on the counter.

Karen stared. Karen blinked. Utter disbelief. No, let it all go to hell. She chugged her shot too. If she gets wasted to then she won’t have to hold Subaru’s head over canal when alcohol poisoning kicks in. Heaven help Seals if Angels attack tonight, they’d be two commanders down. Although Subaru could use some of those homoerotic battles to get pent up frustrations out of system, just like -

“Kamui is constantly getting licked, choked and homoerotically pinned to the wall by his enemy with benefits” – Subaru vocalized her precise thoughts. If Kamui is tossing and turning in bed now it’s because of Subaru’s repressed envy. So much for dream friendship.

“God I wish it was me”, he moaned and rubbed cheek on bar’s counter. Maybe he was crying, Karen couldn’t tell from where she was sitting.

Karen chuckled silently to herself and took a sip of jack. For a moment she felt pity for him. Sympathy lasted until Subaru opened mouth to spout next insanity.

“Oh Seishirou-san, who you’re murdering tonight? Why it isn’t me?”

She spit drink out.

Stupor was brief however. Self-preservation kicked in, she gaped at Subaru and screamed - “What?!”

Now it was Subaru’s turn to be confused. “What?”, he addressed her with judging look, like he was in position to judge anyone here. “He’s Sakurazukamori, that’s his business”

If God truly existed he was watching this and laughing his ass off somewhere in heaven. Karen facepalmed and groaned for nth time tonight. She was worried her face will permanently deform from all the cringing. So Subaru was fooling around with his clan’s enemy clan; an infamous assassin to the boot. Suddenly Karen wasn’t so keen on meeting man who ruined Subaru’s life anymore; she liked to call that having self-preservation skills and common sense. Unlike disaster in human form to her left that was whining about not being dicked down by a serial killer.

Maybe other side’s Kamui had a point – apocalypse was a dire need.

“What are you two, Japanese version of Romeo and Juliet?”, Karen deadpanned once initial shock wore off. She’ll still be processing this information in weeks that follow with Lotus, for her sanity.

“If only, then he’d both take me and take me out”, Subaru complained for nth time. Karen had a hunch their relationship was fuck-marry-kill on endless spiral.

Oh well, you know the saying – bad boys are hotter then good ones. True Sakurazukamori ruined Subaru’s life but at least Subaru could say a sexy man ruined his life. Wait, what nonsense was she saying? Oh looks like alcohol final got to her.

Good. She took another sip for good measures. The less she remembered the better.

Subaru chugged another shot. He hissed and leaned back into seat – unfortunately way too far. He fell down from stool. Shit, she should help him up, shouldn’t she? But if she got up now balance would betray her too. Plus he deserved some karma, in Karen’s humble opinion. Luckily for them both some guy rushed to Subaru’s rescue. Knight in shining armor and if everything played out right also a dick provider for the night. Karen lost all hope there was a permanent fix for Subaru’s endless pile of issues but some railing will make him forget about his serial killer ex for a night.

Or not apparently. Subaru glanced up at guy, then murmured wistfully – “Seishirou-san?”

The hell no. For a second Karen was worried that was really the Sakurazukamori and that she’ll be reduced to a tombstone for daring to put Subaru into environment where other men can hit on him (look, nothing told her Sakurazukamori was just as obsessed with Subaru as Subaru with him but she just knew, call it woman intuition) but one look at guy’s face informed he was just as confused as she was. Apparently Subaru’s intoxicated mind could still discern normal men from his red flag ex so he stood up on his own and pushed this dejected guy away. So much for finding a replacement, looks like Subaru’s type were guys with body count.

“No wait, I think he’s in left corner actually”, Subaru murmured and pointed that direction. Karen glanced and noticed yet another tall menacing looking guy.

“Oh fuck me and my life”, Karen cursed under breath.

Great, now rest of night will be one paranoid mess induced by Subaru’s horny disaster gay mind hallucinating his ex in every corner. From corner of eye Karen noticed bartender nearing. She waved his way.

“Boy, shot of Smirnoff. Actually make it three”

~ 🍾 🍾 🍾 ~

After who knows how many more shots, complains about not getting any cock, asking for advice on how to change that, hallucinating his ex some more, breaking three glasses, almost getting kicked out, rambling some more about his ex and spending month’s worth of salary in one night Karen finally took Subaru out of bar. She held arm around his waist so he doesn’t collapse. To be fair she too was tipsy but still in far better shape.

“Look, a sakura tree”, Subaru whimpered like a child and pointed towards said tree.

After listening to all the drunken ramblings and things she’d rather not recall Karen came to a conclusion: someone should revoke Subaru’s adult rights. It’s misleading to think of him as grown-up.

For a bit she wondered what to do with this soon-to-be-throwing-up mess that potentially needed ambulance as ride home. Obviously she couldn’t leave drunk as high hell Subaru in the middle of street. If he gets kidnapped, injured or dies in some alley out of alcohol poisoning what will she tell Kamui? That his emotional support died because he was thirsting too hard over some emotionally unavailable dick?

She spied taxis on other side of the street. Alright, maybe she should make sure Subaru makes it home and then have same taxi continue the ride and take her home too. Heaven knows how much she craved comfort of her bed and -

“I think I’ll take Subaru-kun from here on” – low masculine voice cut her mussing short.

Karen swirled around in a flash; self-preservation was how she survived in risky line of work all these years. Tall man, dressed in black; he had sunglasses on at 2am - cringe. Instinct told Karen this guy was nothing but bad news. Apparently Subaru didn’t share the sentiment as he flew into guy’s embrace; arm wrapped possessively around his waist in a flash, grin on guy’s face. So much for learning on mistakes, Subaru charged at red flags like a bull.

“Seishirou-san…”, Subaru murmured and gazed yearningly at 26th ‘Seishirou’ of the night.

Now, whether this one was actually Sakurazukamori or not Karen really had no means of knowing. Triangle built checked out; one could build a bird nest on those shoulders. Also this guy seemed to know Subaru? Maybe? Or maybe not? What Karen knew for sure is that her vision was blurring too much; mind hazy, she couldn’t think too coherently. Plus this guy really did look like a potential serial killer, she didn’t want to mess with him.

But Subaru surely did want to. His type after all.

Alas, consideration part of who she is. She had to ask - “And you are?”

“Noone you should concern yourself with”

That was only reply she got before that guy turned around and strolled away – with Subaru cuddled to his side. Karen numbly watched them roam into crowd. Good, she got rid of Subaru. She’d rather give up drinking for whole year than ever let this night make a repeat. She needs to avoid being left alone with Subaru in the future because that would be bound to get awkward. Oh well, problems for future her. For now she could go home and -

Wait wait wait – she just let wasted defenseless Subaru go with a total stranger! Stranger that’s highly likely to be feared assassin and Dragon of Earth!

Fuck, what does she say to Seals!? That she let Subaru follow his obsessive horny dream and ended up in some ditch? Damn, she fucked up big time. She let Subaru wander off with a guy that’s potentially Sakurazukamori!

Even if he wasn’t, killing Subaru in such state would be child’s play. Great, now she’ll be responsible for disappearance of one of Seals, head of Sumeragi clan to the boot. She could already envision seeing Subaru’s face in newspapers for new few months. But then again, could she be blamed really? She’d drunk as high hell herself, hence in no position to stop that guy from taking Subaru away. Not to mention, Subaru was quite content leaving with him – maybe he’ll finally get his wish for being dicked down by Sakurazukamori granted.

Or maybe not if he ends up throwing in guy’s lap. If that doesn’t get Subaru killed then Sakurazukamori must be just as head over heels for him. Because God knows Karen was tempted n numerous times tonight to challenge him to ‘chugging whole Smirnoff bottle’ potentially fatal challenge; for mutual benefit.

Still, Karen was sure of one thing: if Subaru survived they’ll both pretend this night never happened.

[tomorrowusa]

A reminder: DICTATORS WILL NOT KEEP YOU SAFE

Some people think that letting a dictator run the country will keep them safe. But a dictator's primary motivation is to accrue personal wealth and power – not to benefit the country or its people.

Vladimir Putin's ambition is to become known as the Peter the Great of the 21st century. He aims to achieve that by restoring the territory and hegemony of the decrepit Soviet Union. So far, Putin's invasion has cost hundreds of thousands of Russian lives, has been a serious drain on the country's resources, and has caused Russia's international reputation to plummet.

The Kremlin casts President Vladimir Putin as something close to a savior, a strong leader who has brought stability and security following the chaos of the Soviet collapse. The mass-casualty events that have punctuated his nearly 25 years as president or prime minister -- and the recurring images of explosions, flames, and helpless victims desperate to escape harm -- badly undermine that narrative. Instead, analysts say, they tell a story of a leader whose focus on the protection and prolongation of his own power have come at the expense of the security of the people. Putin’s critics say that more than three decades after the demise of the Soviet Union, Russia remains a country in which the state puts its own interests far above those of its citizens. The biggest example is the war against Ukraine: Before the full-scale invasion of February 2022, when Russia was massing tens of thousands of troops at the border and the United States was warning that the onslaught could begin any day, many observers predicted Putin would hold back because a massive attack would harm Russia’s security, not improve it.

Putin's secret police are too busy hunting dissidents, liberals, anti-war activists, and gays to be much concerned about genuine security threats. And this culture of repression was already in place before Putin started the war.

This leaves Russia highly vulnerable to real extremists, analysts say, and to deadly disasters in which corruption, corner-cutting, and negligence cause or exacerbate the effects of avoidable accidents like the fire at the Zimnyaya Vishnya (Winter Cherry) mall in the Siberian city of Kemerovo in March 2018, seven days after Putin was declared the winner of that month's presidential election. “The intelligence services are focused on political investigation and intimidation of citizens. They do not fulfill their direct responsibility to protect society from real threats,” Russian political observer Dmitry Kolezev wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Putin's control of media has made sure that nobody can criticize the way things are run. So everything the government does is publicly portrayed as wonderful. Then when something goes badly wrong and is too big to cover up, people are puzzled at how such a thing could possibly take place.

The March 22 attack at the Crocus City Hall outside Moscow “looks like a grandiose failure” on the part of the state, he wrote. “Fantastic amounts of money are spent on ‘security,’ but in reality, this security is not provided.” Under different circumstances, the political opposition and independent journalists would press the government on this problem, seeing to ensure that security forces do their job and that money is not misspent, Kolezev wrote. “Unfortunately, neither of these groups has access to national television, where they could speak quite loudly about this.” Instead of serving as checks on the state authorities, in other words, these groups are their targets. “Russian security personnel have been trained to look at specific, politically important ‘threats,’” Andras Toth-Czifra, a fellow with the Eurasia Program at the U.S.-based Foreign Policy Research Institute, wrote on X, adding that “due to resource/time/manpower constraints this means that they have less capacity to look at and prevent actual threats.”

When dictators are responsible to no one, they have no obligation to act responsibly.

Putin’s sluggish reaction to the Kursk submarine disaster during his first year in office is an example, and experts say bungled responses to the Nord-Ost theater attack in Moscow in 2002 and the Beslan school hostage crisis in North Ossetia in 2004 increased the casualty counts. The predominance of the priorities of the state and its senior leaders over the interests of citizens is not a new problem: It stretches back to Soviet times and the tsarist era, and it’s a phenomenon that dissidents, rights activists, and opposition politicians say must be reversed if Russia and its people are to thrive. But Kremlin critics say it has become more pronounced as Putin’s rule drags on. Among other things, they point to the war in Ukraine, which has caused hundreds of thousands of Russian casualties even as Putin, securing a new six-year term in what opponents and analysts say was a tightly controlled vote marred by millions of falsified votes, used the election to portray himself as the indispensable leader of a deeply united country.

[starforgedthor]

when you become untouchable {Vigilante | Adrian Chase} // three

three. humble my bones with a cardiac

Summary: So you're asked to play doctor without any experience, but does it matter when you can simply know without the years of stress and study? What really worries you is the fact that you're about to know far too much about Peacemaker, and then immediately forget everything that you would have learned. It's an overwhelming situation for you, and people don't tend to react well to someone intimately knowing every detail of their lives, even when you promise to forget it.

Need to Know: She/Her pronouns. villain!meta-human!reader. self depricating reader. chaos. implied dehumanisation. canon typical violence. possible smut in later chapter i haven't decided. slowish burn.

Warnings: one isolated light-hearted mention of suicide, this chapter is more crass and implicitly sexual, some implied internalised homophobia, light medical descriptions (anaesthetic being administered, stitching up wounds, non-graphic) canon-typical violent/murder talk about the reader

[ masterpost ]

A/N: okay friends now we're getting into more of the meat of it here. this chapter has everything; hypercompetent reader, tired economos, Harcourt (beloved), knowing Peacemaker's entire existence because you held hands and immediately forgetting, Disney sexual awakening and the hot lion from Lion King 2, fucking and fighting discussions,,, let's GO! Very written on my phone and posted at 2am, but hey, I still wanna know what you think.

Taglist: @16boyfriends-and-me @a-girl-who-loves-disney @amysuemc @generalfoolish @idkanymoreaboutlife @home-of-disaster @2guysonascooter @demure-doll @grippleback-galaxy @demeterl @specificpuppy @gay-cold-brew @siberianallen @evvilspawn @simping-4-jason-todd @hazzarights

Taglist is always open, feel free to message or comment to be added! xx

Murn's always given you these weird, wary looks for as long as you've known him. Yeah, everyone kind of looks at you like that when they find out what you can do, and its not like this ragtag group of vague Government rogues were the touchy-feely types, but it seemed like instead of staring into space, when Murn was idle he was watching you. He didn't even try and hide it now. It would be fine if you were actually doing something, but right now you're half falling asleep waiting for Harcourt and Adebayo to bring back Peacemaker and some much needed context.

"Are you telepathic?" You yawned, trying and failing to find a more comfortable seat in your desk chair. There's nothing much on your desk; you don't have many worldly possessions that you think would be appropriate. There's only a stack of textbooks on a variety of topics, which you're doing a very good job of looking anywhere but.

When you speak, breaking the silence, Economos looks up from his computer, first to you, then to Murn watching you like he's studying you. Murn let's the spill from one moment to the next, arms crossed carefully over his chest.

"The parameters of your powers are undefined," he says finally, words chosen with obvious care, like everything he said, "and while I am glad to have you on the team, your attitude is concerning; you're an unknown quantity, and I believe we have enough of those to deal with."

"Oh," as the realisation hits you, you can't help but grin from ear to ear, sitting a little straighter, "you think I'm a liability!" You lean forward in your seat, clutching at the table before you with glee, "you've heard all the stories, haven't you Murn? It's why you even let me on the team in the first place, isn't it? But now you've met me -!" It had been a long time since you'd met someone who knew you by reputation alone, you'd missed how good it felt to crush their expectations between your fingers, "- and you're thinking Oh God, I've made a terrible mistake, what if all the stories are wrong?! Or worse!" You gasp a dramatic breath for effect; there's mirth and delight dancing in your eyes. Economos looks deeply uncomfortable, "what if they're right?!"

Murn blinks slowly. His lack of answer is deafening.

Economos looks between the two of you, head turning back and forth like he's watching a very slow game of tennis. In this moment that stretches out, your challenging gaze not breaking from Murn's, Economos finally sighs and looks back at his computer.

"Don't do that," he says finally, and your good mood breaks, "either of you."

"What?" And you find your head tipping with confused intrigue; he flicks a glance at you out of the corner of his eye.

"You," he says very pointedly, "get all creepily excited like that," he mutters, before adding, mostly under his breath, though still audible in the quiet room, "Harcourt needs to walk you more. "

"Hey!" Despite your protest, you knew the puppy-joke was to be expected, especially from Economos or Harcourt herself.

"And Mister Murn, stop feeding The Chaser's ego."

"Excuse me?" Murn's tone was hard-edged, while you stuck out your tongue at Economos, which they both ignored.

"She gets off on being underestimated," Economos said flatly, continuing despite your attempted rejection of the allegation, "so I'll just tell you what Harcourt told me when I first ran comms for them; every single impressive story about them is true, sure," he rolled his eyes, and you sink back into your chair with a pout, "but to make room for all those kickass skill and knowledge that she gets whenever she picks something up, her head's gotta be empty in the interim."

It's an unfortunately apt way to sum up an outsider's perspective of you, and all you can being yourself to do is quietly sulk as you wait, until you doze off. At least Murn is satisfied with the explanation enough to stop watching you at every minute.

Only when there's shouting do you finally wake, bleary-eyed and barely aware, you're pretty sure Economos wants to know about Murn's bathroom habits. What?! Economos is never allowed to judge what you get excited about ever again, you decide.

This thought is interrupted, however, as Adebayo crashes through the front door practically oozing with adrenaline, recounting her night at a mile a minute as Harcourt and a wincing Peacemaker follow shortly behind her.

"Y/N, look alive, its showtime," Harcourt tells you sharply, and you groaned loudly.

"He looks fine, he'll be fine-" your half-hearted protest is ignored as Harcourt advises Peacemaker to show you wherever he's hurt. Peacemaker looks at you and your grimace with a flat kind of shock.

"Why?"

"Because the best doctor we have is Y/N holding that medical textbook," Harcourt is moving around the space, trying to find the first aid kit, "Y/N," she orders, "textbook."

"You're a doctor?" Peacemaker frowns at you with confusion, but is at least obligingly pulling off his shirt; already you can see some uncomfortably deep wounds on his torso, "that... actually that makes sense," he muses, and you pull off your gloves with a show of exasperation.

"I'm definitely not a doctor, why would that make sense?"

"You know too much," Peacemaker muses; his tone is surprisingly light given how he's struggling to pull off his brightly coloured shirt, "isn't that what you do?" And when he finally gets his shirt off, he huffs a bright sigh of relief, grinning despite being absolutely littered with wounds of varying severity. Your press your lips together in a tight line.

"John, can you be her extra hands if she needs them?" Harcourt asks firmly, to which Economos nods wearily. Thumping the first aid kit onto the table in front of you, Harcourt's expression reads don't fuck around without her saying a word when she meets your gaze. Murn calls she and Adebayo into the next room to debrief, and before she goes, Harcourt picks up the medical textbook from the top of the pile you'd been ignoring, smacking it into your chest pointedly. So finally you concede, and take the book with a faintly pained groan -

It's yours, you can feel your own nausea rising like a feedback loop because of this book, and every time you've ever touched it before, the hours spent pointedly untouched on the desk, being pulled out of a shipping box with gloved hands, the rattle-bump-darkness of being in a box in the back of Harcourt's car during the drive, each mission its been brought along and each time you've used it, the blood that's been splattered and wiped from the shiny cover, feeling the way your apprehension for the book builds in reverse with each time you touch it with your bare hands, the first and only time you've ever properly opened it when you flipped through it with curiosity when it arrived, being shipped and being stacked alongside hundreds of other identical copies in a warehouse before that, the machine precision of mass produced textbook manufacture, the short but detailed history of the printer's ink made on demand, the paper being processed and smooth from the carcases of logs hauled across the country and the whir of logging equipment and the sudden jarring stillness of the tree at the beginning of it all, a quiet life spent growing that seems to stretch back forever -

And every single page is imprinted from your mind into this book at once, every word you could recite with ease, every picture imprinted in high definition, diagrams labelled and it all makes complete and immediate sense to you, everything in the book now second nature, you could stitch a wound or identify any number of rashes or set a broken bone or understand exactly what an injury requires, as detailed in this thick, medical textbook -

Books always made you a little queasy, as did CDs, DVDs, and USB storage devices that weren't empty, but this textbook was especially graphic and overwhelming; touching it always felt like a punishment of sorts.

"Hey, are you okay?" Economos sounds suddenly concerned, while your eyes are pressed tightly shut, taking a few moments to accommodate all the new information in your head, "you don't look so good."

"I feel like I'm gonna be barf, just gimme a moment," you managed, trying to breath through the moment and tune out Peacemaker's sudden panic at the idea of you tending to his wounds, "shut up, I'll be fine!" You insisted.

Finally the phantom pressure in your head has eased and you crack your eyes open. Both Economos and Peacemaker and looking at you warily. After a beat, you manage to muster a bright smile, looking between them both.

"See, no need to stress; the doctor is in."

"What the fuck just happened?" Peacemaker demanded to know, "because last I heard you were some sort of decendant of Artemis or some shit -"

"What?!" You grin with confused delight.

"The Greek God of the hunt," he paused pointed and expression intensely demanding, "emphasis on hunt."

"Who told you that?!" Laughing, you don't seem deterred by Peacemaker's tone.

"Its a widely held belief!" He explodes with exasperated confusion, "you spent all of your time in fucking solitary, half the time people weren't even allowed to collect your laundry. I know you're a weapons expert and can find anyone, anywhere, and I can't think of any other prisoner inside Belle Reve who knows anything else."

"So you all decided to believe I'm decended from a God?!" This revelation even has you clutching the medical textbook to your chest like a delighted schoolgirl, rocking back on your heels.

"Can you reign in your ego for three seconds and do what you're on this mission for?" Economos sounds frankly exhausted, and you deflate a little, finally agreeing with a nod. As you examine Peacemaker's wounds thoroughly, at first without touching him, you explain your powers in detail, including your brief discomfort moments ago. Peacemaker's watching you with an expression like he's trying very hard to understand this all, but you leave him for the time being, raiding the medical supplies for anything you know you'll need to get him fixed up, before you stop suddenly.

You turn, voice firm but amicable; discussions of appropriate bedside manner vary from scenario to scenario throughout the textbook, and though they're brief mentions all at once, you're able to analyse, extrapolate, and apply them all at once.

"Chris, take a seat for me," and though his expression indicates he's surprised at your tone, he obliges immediately, "I'm going to take your hand to do a full assessment of your injuries, okay? If I could do this with my gloves on I would but-"

"Wait, do you mean -" Peacemaker's brow creased with immediate concern, "your selective, all-knowing shit, that- does that mean you'll know everything about me and my entire life if you touch me?"

"Yes," you say carefully, pulling a seat over to sit in front of him; his concern changes as he is clearly now uncomfortable with the situation, "but I'll forget literally all of it the moment I we're no longer in contact."

"Why can't Dye-Beard do it?" He nodded to Economos, who narrowed his eyes with contempt.

"Because fuck you; that's not my job, and I don't dye my beard," sitting back in his chair, Economos pointedly crossed his arms over his chest.

"How can I trust that's really how your powers work? How do I know you're not adding my life to the database you're building in your head of all information ever?" Squinting at you, there's something challenging in Peacemaker's eyes. Unexpectedly however, you choke on a startled laugh.

"If I had to live with everything I learned for everyone and everything I touched I definitely would have killed myself before now," the response is complete honest instinct, punctuated by that same, humourless laugh, but after a moment of genuine deliberation, Peacemaker visibly steels himself and offers his hand. Still, you give a warm, reassign smile to hide your own nerves.

Textbook in one hand, the other reaches out and takes Peacemaker's -

You see his life all at once, every memory he's ever made and every thought he's ever had, seeing even beyond his personal recollects, every single moment since his birth with perfect clarity and how his memories of events differ from his immense truth, all in high definition, his entire existence, his ideologies, the moments that shaped him and each sensation that he's ever experienced or is currently experiencing, all planted into your mind at once.

Every fuck, every fight, every secret he's sworn to take to the grave -

-there had been resistance as the debris pierced Rick Flag's chest but he pushes past the point of no return to save his own life and save the mission and the debris is so firmly lodged in Flag's heart that he can feel the debris move almost imperceptibly with it until he let's go, 'Peacemaker; what a joke' that will haunting more than any death rattle he's been responsible for -

- excitement he'd never admit to after being told he's a part of Taskforce X -

- the voice in the back of his head that spits that falling in love with any of the other inmates he fucks would be a sign of mental weakness and a betrayal of his personal ethics sounds a lot like his dad, so of course he throws the word his dad's always thrown at him with disgust at the twitchy, introverted technomancer with the beautiful, brown eyes, who Peacemaker's been fucking for almost a year, and feels safe enough to fall asleep next to after they fuck, likes well enough to sleep next to because he likes having him close, who he knows he'd defend, when the technomancer ruins it all when he realises how thoroughly Peacemaker's been lying to himself, in the process exposing his weakness which Peacemaker pounces upon rather than asmitting the truth, admitting to being just as weak, 'come on, Chris, I love you, obviously I fucking love you' Peacemaker's no stranger to lying to himself or others but its been a while since its come with guilt; this shame echoes in his father's voice louder than his own -

- what felt like eons of interrogations after his capture and being steadfast in denying any accomplices, lying through his teeth and acting confused when they mention rumours of another cape in his home town besides his dad, and the relief he felt but would never in his life admit to anyone, least of all Vigilante, when he it finally clicks that he's being asked about it because they know absolutely nothing -

- he fights beside Vigilante and finally feels like he's earning his title, even if their justice is a tad bit extreme --

"You..." half a second has passed, your hand on his, his entire existence echoing in your mind all at once. Swallowing hard as your mind catches on every time his father had blamed him for his brothers death, you try to focus on his immediate state and the fight he'd just encountered, "you know the Vigilante?" Is not what you had intended to say, but it escapes you nonetheless. Peacemaker gives you a sharp look, and you clear throat, "sorry, not important; for the record, your ankles are fucked, but not in a long-term way," you breathe deeply.

"I escaped the fifth floor leapfrogging my way down between balconies," Peacemaker says, before conceding for a moment, "which you probably know already."

"Judging by how you're feeling these wounds, they're gonna hurt like a bitch and need time to recover but none are actually that bad all things considered; from what we have on hand, I'll give you some ibuprofen for the pain and the swelling in your ankles, but I'll stick you with some local anaesthetic for the ones that need stitching up," looking to your medical bag, you considered for a long moment, "then it's just a quick job of cleaning and stitching those wounds up," you give a smile, but Peacemaker's still looking at you like he's waiting for you to react with what you now know about him. With a cheery smile, you request Economos fetch everything you need from the medical bag before turning back.

"Okay, gimme a moment, I'm just going to save everything I'll need to fix you up -"

"Save?"

"From the textbook," reading the concern in Peacemaker's mind as it continues to grow, you elaborate, "I'm literally only cataloguing the information that's relevant to this exact situation so I can have my hand free, and I won't have to carry all that excess information in my head."

"You c-" but you catch the question before it's even fully left his mind.

"I can do that, but I will give it back after; I'm not keeping any of your memories, I don't know you well enough to," you make an apologetic expression for a moment, "care." To your grateful surprise, Peacemaker finally decides to drop his concern about the whole situation; he believes that if you were going to judge him you would have already. The tense set of his shoulder eases.

"That freaks me out," Economos looks a little nauseous as he hands over the supplies you requested and takes the textbook off your hands.

"Which part?" While unfortunately you've been left with several pictures of open, half stitched, and closed wounds at the forefront of your mind, considering you no longer had to see the other ninety-five percent of the images in the textbook all at once, and the text you've saved is comprehensive, and wound care isn't exactly new for you anyways, you find yourself feeling lighter than air, "the textbook?"

"No," Economos stacks the textbook on top of all your others, tone thoughtful, "no that I understand, you know that makes sense, I just can't wrap my head around what it means when you touch a person; their whole existence all at once, how the fuck can you understand that immediately?"

Letting go of Peacemaker's hand in order to prepare your equipment, your head suddenly echoes with the textbook's directions and your own thoughts.

"I wish I knew," came your distracted response as you quickly donned the pair of medical gloves before touching anything else, "can you grab some water so Chris can take this ibuprofen?" You began to draw anaesthetic into a syringe as Economos obligingly heads to the building's kitchenette.

"Was it like an action movie?" Peacemaker's curious and strangely bright tone breaks your concentration where you're trying to flick the bubbles from the medication.

"What?" You deadpan with confusion, "your- your existence?"

"I've done some cool shit, was seeing all of that like watching an action movie?" He's wearing this little, weirdly hopeful smile as he considers the prospect for himself.

"I don't remember," you answered honestly after a beat to consider, to which he frowned.

"You really don't... you weren't kidding about losing everything if we break contact?"

"I remember my memories of the event," you shrugged, "but they're completely mundane after contact; we held hands, I made a comment about you knowing Vigilante but cannot for the life of me remember what prompted that, and I explained exactly how I'm going to fix you up, I only know why I said what I said in that regards because thats still up here," you tap at your temple. In the moments that follow, Peacemaker grants you silence in which to inject part of the anaesthetic into the first stab wound you intended to focus on.

"I'd appreciate it if you tried to keep my whole 'knowing Vigilante' situation under wraps," he asked, far quieter than before. In the kitchenette, you can hear Economos banging around in the cupboards and defeatedly swearing.

"So it's true?"

"You're the one who said it?" Immediately Peacemaker was baffled, while you sat back and soaked a cotton ball with rubbing alcohol.

"Yeah but I also saw your entire existence at once; it wouldn't have been the first time I've connected obscure dots in someone's life and extrapolated and -"

"That's fucking terrifying, and yes, it's true," he admitted. Finally you can hear the tap running. You take the stringe once more, gently prodding by the hopefully numb wound.

"Can you feel that?" You ask, and when Peacemaker shakes his head you begin to carefully swab the wound, speaking up after you've finished and are threading the needle, "he's the guy who kills criminals, right?" You ask, and Peacemaker nods, looking at his hands.

"Whenever I was in town, we both were; we were the justice the government was too much of a pussy to execute."

"How noble," its a neutral comment, said distractedly as you lean in and carefully begin to stitch his wound closed. They aren't the neatest stitches, but having machine-like precision while holding the needle wasn't worth the risk of your bare hand touching Peacemaker.

"Its funny, actually," tone lightening, he even manages to huff a bemused laugh, "we knew about you," it takes a moment for you to fully process this, but he's started talking again before you can properly react, "yeah, we had like, this dream hit-list -"

"Did going to prison blindside you or did you see it coming like everyone else around you probably did?" You ask with a wry kind of amusement, pausing your work for a moment to let your words sink in. Peacemaker rolled his eyes at that.

"It was a hit-list for good, better than some pussy cotary of supervillains," he huffed, "we were trying to enact real justice, not just play catch and release with murderers and a corrupt system."

"Actually," you consider for a moment, "that's solid logic," and you get back to the task at hand, tone turning teasing as you added, "was I ever on your dream hit-list?"

"Yeah..." but it came out surprisingly non-committal, which had you raising your eyebrows; as Peacemaker elaborates without prompting, you secure the final stitch, and set about numbing the second wound, "but like, kind of in the same way every guy our age - every guy who's into chicks -" he amends, "will list The Little Mermaid as part of their sexual awakening - did you see that, by the way?" He asks, and you squeeze your eyes shut.

"I don't know if you're referring to the movie in a general sense, or the moment you realised you want to fuck Ariel, or possibly even when you understood that you could feel that way about other girls, but yes I would have seen it, no I don't remember it, and I wish I could go back thirty seconds and never have this conversation," you wheezed, face in your hands. However, as you surfaced, you're expression reads as both exasperated and amused, and you begin to clean the wound.

"So you wanted to kill me the way you wanted to fuck Ariel," you prompted after a moment.

"Yeah, like more because you're a villain and it felt like what I was supposed to do; sure I enjoyed the thought of it but I'd never consider you nemesis material."

"But Vigilante felt a more personal hatred to me, the villain he's never met?" You snickered.

"Oh dude, you were like his hot-lion-from-the-second-Lion-King-movie sexual awakening -" Peacemaker laughs brightly, and you're glad to match his energy with a grin.

"Kovu?"

You immediately go still, both sitting in this moment where you're both kind of ashamed to be on the same page.

"He acted like it was a full blood fued, always seemed so personally invested in taking you down; he was beside himself when you were caught and they threw you in Belle Reve," Peacemaker chuckles a little awkwardly, before adding, "but still, any time I asked if he thought he could take you in hand to hand combat he'd end up getting hard."

"Don't be gross, you guys used to fantasise about murdering me, I'm not flattered," you told him shortly. Pausing, you realise it's been a while since Economos had gone to get water, though when you look up you see him in the next room with the other three team members in quiet discussion. Clearing your throat, you find yourself sitting back and waiting for the anaesthetic to take effect again; "so was it a power fantasy thing, or do you think murder and fucking were two separate, conflicting desires?"

"Probably a bit of both," Peacemaker doesn't even have to think to answer, and the tension breaks when you can't help but laugh.

The four in the next room look sharply through the window that separates your groups, both wheezing with laughter, even as the movements aggravate Peacemaker's stitches and he's wincing between breaths. You'll fix him up without complaint, and the day will continue whether you want it to or not, but this one moment is unfamiliar in a way that stings retroactively, that you miss despite never having had. There had been hesitation, of course, there's always hesitation about your powers, but you had not been grandstanding and he had decided to trust your word...

It had been a very long time since you had felt like someone saw you as an actual equal.

[theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin]

Hey. Thanks for answering my last ask. I did like Tom/Lily back at my day (lol as if I'm that old) but to be fair...any ship with Lily is better than Jilly.

One question. What you think of Hinny and Luna x Ginny? Cause nit gone lie I think Luna x Ginny has more potential than Hinny. But maybe is because I love the trope "pop falls for unpop"

... I’m not sure I’m supposed to feel as insulted as I do that I apparently barely cleared the very low bar that is Jily. 

Moving on.

I’ve given most of my thoughts on Ginny and shipping here.

Harry/Ginny

To sum up for what you’re asking though, I think Harry/Ginny is a complete disaster. Oh, Harry’s the only one she has eyes for but... it is not a good relationship.

Both of them are attracted to the idea of one another and barely seem to know who the other is.

In the case of Ginny, she tries to be someone who she thinks Harry will be attracted to. She takes note of what failed with his relationship with Cho and goes out of her way not to be that. All of her actions in the sixth book are geared towards desperately getting Harry’s attention. More, she projected this heroic persona onto Harry Potter that she never seems to see anything beneath it.

Harry for his own part... likes Ginny’s skin? His attraction to her in Halfblood Prince is one of the weirdest things I have ever read. He seems to lust after her, sort of, we get this green rage monster that throws a fit every time he sees Dean Thomas with Ginny. However, he really doesn’t know much about her and proceeds to barely spend any time with her even when they start dating. That he leaves her in Deathly Hallows is very telling, and very chilling to me. Not only is Ginny not a part of “the gang” and not invited to their club house, Harry is effectively leaving her to be taken hostage by Voldemort. This doesn’t bother him, at all, but then nothing really does.

I also think Harry’s gay (he spends a lot more time drooling after attractive men in canon then he does attractive women), he just doesn’t know it.

So, I think his and Ginny’s marriage is likely a disaster. Ginny has affairs all the time as nothing works out the way she thought it would but is too in love with the fame, the money, and the dream of being Harry Potter’s wife to ever leave. Harry’s utterly oblivious to his wife cheating on him and has to have it pointed out by James Sirius. Harry doesn’t believe him.

I’ll put it like this, their marriage is worse than Ron and Hermione’s. And that, my friend, is a low bar.

A Tangent: Ginny’s Not Popular

I’m actually going to argue that Ginny’s not at all popular. In fact, I imagine she’s actually severely disliked. Harry’s just too oblivious to notice.

So, first, Ginny is the youngest sister of the Weasley family. We see the hit this has on Ron, who has a massive inferiority complex, but we don’t see what it means to Ginny. What we can assume though, is that she’s known, and that the instant she walks into school she has a reputation that’s not necessarily good.

Percy, her brother, is that smarmy asshole prefect.

Fred and George are those assholes who constantly prank everyone. Some think this is hilarious, usually when they’re not the victims, others aren’t too keen on this.

Ron’s that guy who’s constantly getting into trouble with Harry Potter, is a known dumbass who doesn’t even have a working wand in his second year (wizards are elitist like this), and earns hundreds of house points at the end of the year for committing arson.

All of this will feed into how people perceive Ginny before even meeting her. For better or for worse, she is a Weasley, and that means people will see her a certain way.

And then Ginny has the worst first year imaginable.

She isolates herself and pours her heart and soul into a diary. Every second she’s spending talking to Tom Riddle is a second she’s not making friends. More, Ginny’s behavior becomes more and more erratic as Tom Riddle begins to possess her. She starts missing classes, acting strangely, etc.

And I think it’s damning that no one noticed.

No one is watching Ginny, no one is even around her, so if she disappears for a few hours and wakes up covered in blood in the bathroom, nobody knows. Had Tom not written a message informing the entire school that Ginny had been kidnapped, no one would have noticed, Ginny would have died down there in the chamber and it would have been days until someone, maybe, put it together.

Ginny in her first year has no friends.

And then it’s too late.

We see with Harry that people in Hogwarts form friendships fast and they rarely change. You get your clique in you first few weeks of Hogwarts, and if you’re unlucky like Hermione then it takes a few months and a troll nearly killing you to find your group, and then you stick with that group.

Ginny comes back second year, everyone already has their best friends, there’s no room for her. She tries to integrate into a group, they just give her weird looks, and more remember her as that sickly lunatic.

Because remember, that she was possessed is not known beyond a few people. It’s never publicized, and most probably think Harry or Hagrid was behind the Chamber of Secrets Fiasco II: Electric Boogaloo.

So, you get a bunch of kids who don’t want to hang out with Ginny. And, Hogwarts houses are so insular, that Ginny can’t really go and hang out with anyone else.

For all that Ginny joins the quidditch team, for all she joins the DA, I don’t think she ever really has friends. She’s just the youngest and weirdest Weasley.

And then comes her fifth year.

Ginny decides she’s going to date every guy in Hogwarts to get Harry’s attention. Now, good or bad, this is going to get Ginny a reputation, a very negative one. To the male Hogwarts population: Ginny’s an easy lay. To the female Hogwarts population: Ginny’s that bitch who will steal your boyfriend.

Halfblood Prince will not make Ginny any friends.

Ginny/Luna

It has more potential than Harry/Ginny but I personally don’t think it’s going to happen.

Like everyone else, Ginny looks down on Luna, which is a bit hilarious as per the above I don’t think Ginny’s rolling in popularity either. Luna’s weirdness is tolerated at best in a sort of, “Oh, look how cute and nuts she is, let’s pat Luna on the head.”

More, as I explained in the Ginny shipping meta linked, Ginny only has eyes for Harry and I think it would take a lot for her to look in any other direction. And to go for Looney Lovegood instead?

Part of Harry’s appeal is that he’s Wizarding Jesus, he’s important, wonderful, charming, a prince in Ginny’s eyes. Luna’s that batty girl who lives down the street and has radishes in her ears.

I just don’t see Ginny ever going for it.

As for Luna, she’s hard to get a read on, but I believe she’s fully aware of what different people think of her. She’s a very kind and generous person who overlooks this for her friends, but in a romantic partner... I think Luna is waiting for someone who truly understands her or if not that then at least truly likes her.

I don’t think that will ever be Ginny.

[everlarkficexchange]

Hold Me Up

Prompt 42. Group of friends. Economic disaster, no jobs; eventually in desperation someone in the group suggests making a porno for $, the idea takes off, as they work on a script and put out ideas, a lot becomes clear, like who has kinks, who has tried a lot, and that one is an inexperienced virgin. Does the writing experience have consequences to the group dynamic, will they actually film and sell it, will they stay friends? Are any couples or siblings part of the group? Are secrets revealed through brainstorming?

Submitted by @567inpanem

Author: JLaLa

Rated M

Summary: “What the hell are you suggesting?” Gale asked.

“I thought it was obvious,” the woman next to him said. “I’m suggesting we make a porno.”

Strapped for cash, a group of friends—plus two strangers—decide to go all out.

Multiple pairings, and of course, Everlark. 

“Hold me up in the palm of your hand Lying to you is a river of sin Your metaphors, your silent calls Your feelings are too real…”

                                                -Live

Hold Me Up

Part One

Katniss closed her eyes as the rush of hot water hit her face. It had been a hell of a day.

Her boss cut her hours at the record store due to the lack of sales. She had done everything short of offering to blow the man—wouldn’t have worked, he was gay—to get as many hours as possible. However, everyone was suffering due to Panem’s economic disaster and Heavensbee’s hands were tied.

All she wanted to do tonight was eat the leftover Chinese in the fridge, binge watch Bridgerton for the hundredth time and use her vibrator until she climaxed to the image of Simon Basset eating her out—

“Katniss!” There was a quick knock before the door opened. “Sorry, but I have to piss like a racehorse—”

She pulled back the shower curtain to the sight of her roommate and friend, Peeta, unzipping his jeans.

“Seriously, couldn’t you do that somewhere else? Like, maybe get a plastic cup or do it in the sink?”

“Last time I did, Gale totally flipped out on me,” her friend replied. “It’s not like you haven’t seen my dick before. You’ve seen it plenty of times, most of the time it was erect.”

The peril of living with two boys was that you always seemed surrounded by morning wood…any kind of wood really.

“Fine.” Katniss closed the curtain. “Try not to be loud about it though.”

“How am I loud while I pee?”

“‘Oooh fuck, finally…I’ve been holding that in all day!’ Katniss mimicked mockingly. “You’d think that you were doing something else instead of emptying your bladder.”

“Honestly, sometimes a good pee is better than sex,” Peeta retorted. “I don’t think that I’ll be able to stop it once it starts so just sing something really loud or you’ll be hearing me hitting the porcelain pretty hard.”

Katniss walked under the shower to rinse her hair and belted out the first song that came to her.

“I got a new life

You would hardly recognize me

I’m so glad

How could a person like me care for you?

Why, why do I bother

When you’re not the one for me

Is enough enough?”

“I saw the sign and it opened up my eyes…” Peeta sang along and Katniss giggled hearing his melodic baritone. “I saw the sign…life is demanding without understanding—”

“We should start a group,” she offered as she turned the nozzle and the water stopped. “Especially since I’ll likely be laid off soon.”

“Oh shit! I’m sorry, Katniss.” A hand peeked through the curtain, holding a towel and she took it, quickly wrapping it around herself. “We’re all taking it up the butt, aren’t we?”

She pulled back the curtain and stepped out. “What do you mean?”

“Haymitch and Effie will probably have to close down with everything happening,” he informed her. “The rent for the bakery space is just too much for them. I mean, we still have our regulars, but they’re not making enough to pay me to make a dozen danishes and scones.”

“That sucks.” Peeta was still wearing his apron around his waist, a red bandana covering his blond locks, along with his usual baking uniform of a fitted white tee and jeans. “I know how much you love that job. Not to mention, Haymitch and Effie are pretty kickass.”

“Well, at least we have Gale,” her friend replied as he opened the door, letting her step out first before putting a companionable arm around her waist. “Old reliable Gale—”

There was a cough and they found Gale sitting on their couch lighting up their emergency joint.

This was bad.

++++++

“My whole department was pretty much eliminated,” Gale explained once he stepped out of his daze. “They led us in, one by one, into that small office and gave us the whole spiel about making cutbacks before handing us our severance checks. This will hold me for about six months of my piece of the rent—”

“This is probably the worst time to tell you,” Katniss started. “But Heavensbee reduced my hours at the store and I’ll probably be getting the boot soon.”

“Effie and Haymitch can’t afford to keep me at the bakery,” Peeta told him. “They’re also likely to lose the business, too.”

Gale nodded, elbows on his knees and hands clasped together. “Well, we’re fucked.”

“Now there’s that positive attitude that we know and love,” a sharp feminine voice said.

The three looked up to find the rest of their friends stepping into the apartment led by Johanna, who lived across the hall from them. Madge, her roommate, followed in with a pizza box and the group was finished out with Finnick, who lived downstairs and was—until today—Gale’s teammate.

“Well, we’re fucked!” Gale repeated, his voice hitching up at the end. He looked to Johanna. “Good enough?”

“We’re all getting it,” Madge said, sitting next to him calmly. “The Forever 21 I’m working at is closing. So, I’m screwed, and I won’t even have severance like you and Finnick.”

“I have thousands of dollars in debt over the camera equipment I just bought,” Finnick told her. “I’m supposed to be working on my documentary.” Their friend was a budding director. “Now, I’ll be using the rest of my severance to pay it off.”

Johanna plopped down in their lone seat, putting her feet on the table.

“Not that I don’t love you guys, but I’ve been out of a job for months, so your sob stories mean nothing to me,” she said. Grabbing the joint, their friend took a long inhale and breathe out in relief. “The job market is non-existent at this point.”

“God, maybe I should’ve pushed on blowing Heavensbee,” Katniss muttered.

Finnick snorted. “What?”

“He’s gay, but probably not getting any,” she replied, next to Peeta. “If you close your eyes, it feels the same.”

“You might have something there,” Johanna suddenly said, her oak eyes contemplative.

Peeta glared at her. “Not funny. You really want Katniss turning tricks for rent?”

“Hardly,” their friend replied. “No offense—” Johanna looked to Katniss. “—you alone have no sex appeal, and this is coming from a full-fledged lesbian.” She turned to Madge. “She would—with the pouty lips and the big titties. Not to mention those golden locks. Put a little red hood on her and you’ll have those Fairy Tale freaks begging to see what’s underneath.”

Katniss crossed her arms. “Well, thank you for telling me that I’m undesirable.”

“I didn’t say that.” Johanna looked between Katniss and Peeta. “I said you alone would have no sex appeal but put you with him—” She nodded at Peeta. “—or her.” A hand waved over at Madge. “People will pay big money to see that. A nice little ying and yang.”

“What the hell are you suggesting?” Gale asked.

“I thought it was obvious,” the woman next to him said. “I’m suggesting we make a porno.”

++++++

Several beers in, the idea started to make sense.

“Babe, if this thing took off, we could pay off the camera equipment,” Annie, Finnick’s fiancée, said. She had joined them a little after the major freak out over Johanna’s idea. “Also, you could get some experience in handling the equipment and I could get experience with the boom mic.”

“That is true,” Finnick mused.

“Guys, do you know how many different types of porn there is out there? How would we make one that people would be interested in?” Gale asked. His voice had taken on a rough slur, five bottles in, as he leaned against a drunken Madge.

“Simple,” Johanna smirked. “We do our research. This neighborhood is full of not-so-reputable places; it’s why rent used to be freakishly low. We can ask what men and women would like to see. Also, we’re all decent looking.”

“What about the fact that you’re talking about us having sex with each other?” Peeta asked, eyes bloodshot. Katniss laid on his lap, singing along to the music on her phone. “No offense, but I don’t want to have sex with you. You scare me a little.”

“Well, who would you want to have sex with?” Madge asked with a buzzed grin.

“Easy.” Peeta looked at the giggling woman on his lap. “Katniss.”

“Really now?” Finnick leaned forward in interest. “Why her?”

“I’m comfortable with her,” he explained. “We were each other’s first kiss, granted we were only five—but also, she’s seen my dick plenty of times.”

Katniss drunkenly waved her finger at him. “I’m not scared of it…”

“Dude, why aren’t you together?” Annie asked.

Peeta shrugged. “Seemed better to stay friends.”

“Those two are such chickens,” Gale called out. “They just tiptoe…and tiptoe…and it’s all like ‘I think Katniss is beautiful’…or ‘I want to have Peeta’s babies’…and I’m just like why don’t you just fuck already?”

“Fine.” Katniss slid onto the floor and held her hand out, palm down. “We’ll do this. I get to fuck Peeta because everyone is so invested…but we all have to be in this.” She looked at the rest of the group, her eyes landing on Peeta. “Do we agree?”

Johanna placed her hand over Katniss’. “I’m in.”

Madge followed immediately. “Me, too.”

“Fine,” Gale muttered before his hand landed on the pile.

“We’re down,” Finnick said, adding his hand.

“But only as the filmmakers,” Annie added before placing her hand on top of her fiancé’s.

Katniss looked to Peeta; nervousness laced in her grey eyes. “And you?”

He examined her, almost losing himself in her gaze before placing his hand down to seal the pact.

“Let’s do this.”

++++++

“Do you like oral?” Katniss asked the scantily-clad waitress. “Giving? Getting?”

“Yes, to both,” the pretty blonde answered.

Johanna and Gale had gotten to work quickly, both making up the questionnaire that they were using for research. While that was happening, Annie and Finnick put up an ad looking for available actors and actresses to add to their production.

Two days ago, their questionnaire had revealed that threesomes, double penetration, and girl-on-girl were high on the list. Unfortunately, they didn’t know who would be doing what except for Katniss and Peeta.

“And anal?” Katniss continued as Peeta joined her at the table.

“Sure,” the woman answered. “I’m pretty open. Me and my ex used to film ourselves all the time.” She looked at the two. “You two looking for tips?”

“Maybe,” Katniss replied. She turned to Peeta. “Did you want anything?”

“Coke, please,” he told the woman. “I’m still recovering from the past few days.”

“Coke for him and a Lagavulin for me,” Katniss told the waitress.

“You like the good stuff.” She gave Katniss a saucy wink. “I’ll be right back with your drinks. I’m Delly, by the way.”

“Katniss.” Katniss gestured over at Peeta, who gave Delly a light wave. “Peeta.”

She nodded. “Nice meeting you.”

As soon as Delly walked away, Katniss turned to her friend. “What do you think?”

“Decent rack, sweet face, and she has experience apparently,” Peeta replied. “Thoughts on having her on the team?”

“Well, she seems friendly,” Katniss replied. She eyed him. “Would you do her?”

“If I had to…sure,” her friend replied. “How about you?”

“Me and Delly?” Katniss looked to the woman at the bar, awaiting their drinks. She was pretty with wavy, shoulder-length hair and wide eyes. Not to mention, her body was banging—the bejeweled bustier made her breasts look incredible—and her personality was easy. “Sure. Why not? I mean it will make me more…desirable.”

“Are you still pissed off that?” Peeta asked. “Johanna loves to rile you up.”

“I hate that she can.” Katniss sighed. “Are we really going to do this?”

“Haven’t you ever been curious?” Peeta’s gaze fell warmly on her. “How it might feel like between me and you?”

“Sometimes,” she admitted. “We kissed that one time, but nothing came of it. I thought maybe you didn’t like it…or me.”

“I do like you. I love you.” Peeta reached for her, pulling her onto his lap. “I guess we were just both too scared to explore what kind of love we could’ve had.”

Her arms wove around his neck as Katniss pressed her forehead to his. “I love you and I like you, too.”

“Your drinks, lovebirds.” Delly approached them, a bright smile on her face. “Anything else I can get you?”

“Actually.” Katniss stood up, pulling out the business card with Johanna’s number on it. “I have a proposition for you.”

++++++

“What are your special skills?” Johanna asked as she looked over Delly’s resume.

Delly gave the group a bright smile, her eyes landing on Katniss with a wink.

The group gathered the following day for auditions for the two additional actors at Finnick and Annie’s place.

Currently, Annie and Peeta were reviewing resumes and headshots in the hallway while the rest of them assessed the auditions.

The group had agreed to hold them at Finnick and Annie’s since it looked the most professional. The couple’s apartment was stylishly decorated thanks to Annie’s chic but budget-friendly taste—most of their furnishings from Target and IKEA.

“Can you look into the camera?” Finnick asked from where he stood in the center of the living room.

“Sure.” Delly looked straight into the camera, smiling into it. “Well…I can do a handstand and suck dick at the same time.”

“Can we see?” Madge asked from where she stood next to Finnick.

“The sucking dick part or the headstand?”

“How about we just see how it looks?” Finnick suggested. “Have Annie bring the next male audition in.”

Gale stood from his seat. “I’m on it.” He quickly came back, followed by a tall, dark-skinned man who flashed them all a handsome smile. “Everyone, this is Thresh. Thresh, why don’t you join Delly in front of the camera?”

“Sure,” he said easily and walked over to Delly, holding out his hand. “I’m Thresh.”

Delly shook it, her mouth widening in a grin. “Delly.”

“Okay, whenever you’re ready,” Johanna told the two.

Nodding, Delly bent over, pressing her palms to the floor. Then as she steadied, the woman easily lifted her hips…then her legs…before straightening them, her toes pointing in the air.

“Amazing,” Madge whispered.

Next to her, Gale nodded in agreement.

Katniss stood from her seat, going to Finnick, and looked at the camera’s viewfinder.

Delly and Thresh made a strikingly good couple on camera. They were at ease, chatting as if Delly wasn’t in front of the man’s crotch and at a perfect angle to go at his junk.

“Thresh, any special skills?” Gale asked, handing Johanna the man’s resume.

“I can get an erection on command,” Thresh told them.

“Okay, we all need to see this,” Johanna said. “Someone get Peeta and Annie in here.”

“Delly, you can get off your hands now,” Katniss said.

“Let me help—” Thresh held her hips as Delly eased down. As she did, the crotch of her leggings met his groin, and she wrapped her legs around his to steady herself.

“The perfect standing wheelbarrow,” Finnick remarked from behind the camera. “Bravo!”

Peeta and Annie stepped inside as Thresh helped Delly onto her feet. She smiled gratefully, kissing his cheek before dashing over to where the rest of the group was gathered.

“Even if you don’t hire me, I need to see this,” she told them.

Peeta joined Katniss’ side. “What are we looking at?”

Finnick signaled Thresh. “Whenever you’re ready.”

The man simply undid the top button of his jeans, unzipped, and holding the sides of his jeans lowered them down.

Taking a deep breath, the man closed his eyes, as the group watched his cock—a rather thick one—go from half-mast to full in less than a minute.

“Well, that deserves some applause,” Peeta told everyone and began to clap.

The group quickly joined in, but not before hiring both Delly and Thresh.

++++++

“Okay, two things,” Gale announced, going to the easel and whiteboard that he had set up in their living room. He wrote out ‘Location’ and ‘Plot’. “First, location. Any thoughts?”

“We can’t just do it in one of our apartments?” Finnick asked.

“Would you want to sit on your living room couch thinking that Johanna ate Delly out on it?” Gale asked him. “Or Katniss and Peeta on your kitchen counter—”

“True,” Annie said. “Let’s not shit where we eat.”

“Maybe we can rent out space for very cheap,” Thresh said. “I might know some club places where I work security that might be in our price range.”

They learned that Thresh was a part-time security guard and a returning student at the local community college. He was trying to get his Business degree and planned to open a gym after he graduated.

“Great idea,” Gale wrote down, ‘Thresh-club spaces’. Anyone else?”

“That bar I work at might be willing,” Delly told them. “I might have to give the owner a boost—”

“No way,” Peeta interrupted. “We don’t want you doing those kinds of favors just to get us a workspace.”

“Definitely,” Katniss agreed, smiling at the girl. “We’ll figure it out together.”

“Okay, what about a plot?” Johanna went to the board. “Every porn needs one to entice an audience. Why don’t we do a round robin and everyone says one thing that turns them on? I’ll start.” She turned around and wrote on the board—‘A clean bush’.

“Doesn’t everyone like it to be clean down there?” Finnick remarked before looking to Annie. “I mean you keep it pristine—”

“No need to tell everyone about my cat, love,” his fiancée retorted.

“I mean, I don’t mind it being wild down there,’ Gale told the group. He took the marker from Johanna and scribbled, ‘Bossiness’. “I like a dominating woman.”

“Definitely a good BDSM storyline,” Madge remarked as she walked up to the board, writing ‘Rough play’. “I like manhandling and being manhandled. I worked with this guy and we use to hook up all over the office. Once after everyone left, we were going at it and he takes me and lifted me—” She mimicked her lover with her hands. “—onto the copy machine before pounding the living daylight out of me.”

Everyone stared in shock at the seemingly sweet blonde twirling a tendril of her hair.

“Come Monday, everyone was trying to figure why there were a hundred copies of someone’s bare pussy on the copy machine tray,” she said in a daze.

“Damn—” Gale swallowed harshly. “—thank you for your contribution.” His gaze went to the person sitting next to Madge. “Katniss?”

“I…I…” Katniss bowed her head. She wasn’t thrilled with everyone knowing just what got her going. However, at some point, they were all going to be seeing her being thoroughly fucked by Peeta. “I like…dirty talk.” She shifted in her seat, aware that next to her sat her soon-to-be co-star. “I don’t have any experience, but when I’m…masturbating, the voice in my head is usually whispering very depraved things in my ear.”

“Care to expand, sweetheart?” Thresh asked from where he sat across.

“Well—” Katniss folded her hands in her lap. “The voice will tell me how much he loves feeling his fingers being squeezed by my cunt, how drenched I am around his dick, how he wants to fuck me until I can’t feel my legs…sometimes he talks about fucking me in both holes…his dick in my pussy and his thumb in my asshole—”

Peeta suddenly jumped from his spot. “I’m going to grab some water from the fridge. Anyone?”

He quickly disappeared into the next room before anyone could even answer.

“You just gave Peeta a boner,” Delly cackled from her seat on the carpet. “Why aren’t you dating?”

“Because—” Katniss searched for a reason, finding herself unable to answer. “—let me check on him.”

She found him bent in front of the fridge.

He pulled back sans water and turned just as she stepped in.

“We ran out of water.” Peeta met her eyes fully, watching as she approached. “I didn’t mean to run off—”

“Peeta, what turns you on?” she found herself asking.

Katniss stopped in front of him and her gaze took her friend in—swept-back blond waves, a firm jaw, and blue eyes…hazed with arousal. They never really talked about the fact that they had admitted to their friends that they were curious about fucking one another.

To be entirely truthful, the voice in her ear, the one that spoke such deliciously sinful things—was Peeta’s voice.

She didn’t know when the mystery man had morphed into her best friend, but sometimes the image of him—in his usual uniform of a pair of jeans, a tee, and an apron—would cause a heat that threatened to burn her to the very core.

However, this precipice between friendship and whatever it was, scared her.

So, Katniss held back.

Peeta shook his head. “It’s kind of stupid.”

“I just told everyone that a mystery voice gets me wet with talk of double penetration.”

He laughed roughly. “That is true.”

Meeting her eyes, Peeta leaned back against the door of the fridge.

“I like sex in different places…the element of danger…of being caught.” His golden complexion tinged with pink. “It’s a major turn-on.”

She nodded, toeing in closer to him. “Have you ever—"

“No, just fantasies,” Peeta said. “Compared to the rest of our friends, I’m pretty daisy fresh.”

“Tell me the last place that you’ve fantasized having sex in,” Katniss said. “I won’t tell anyone.”

“I know you wouldn’t,” he replied, his hand reaching to cup her cheek.

His thumb grazed the corner of her mouth and she resisted the urge to take it into her mouth to taste.

“The bakery.” His gaze fell to her lips. “Specifically, against one of the ovens as it’s warming up and y—whoever and I just get so caught up in the smell of sugar…of rye…and one another that we don’t know where the heat is rising from—”

Katniss suddenly straightened. “Ohmigod…the bakery.”

“What?”

“The bakery,” she repeated.

His eyes widened in realization. “The bakery.”

END OF PART ONE

This will be multiple parts, not sure how many though.

Yes, before you ask, this is loosely based on Zack and Miri Make a Porno which I think is a hilarious movie with some great music.

Speaking of music, the title comes from Live’s ‘Hold Me Up’, which was used in the soundtrack of Zack and Miri. It also plays during a pivotal scene.

Other music used: ‘The Sign’-Ace of Base

I hope you’re enjoying it so far—as if now, I have just completed the second part.

Thanks for reading!

-JLaLa

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 06 (first part)

(Masterpost)(Episode 05)

Warning: This contains spoilers for All 50 Episodes

Bad Boys Bad Boys What You Gonna Do

Nie Huasang’s brought his nuts, and someone’s brought wine, so the boys are drinking in Wei Wuxian’s guest house. Finally he gets to drink some of the Emperor’s Smile wine that he’s been doing all those product placements for.

Boys, get a bowl or something for your shells, were you raised in a barn?

Wei Wuxian hits on waxes poetic about the wine, and Jiang Cheng tells him to shut up. 

Wang Zhuocheng’s raw-fish-eating face may have failed him, but his drunk faces do not disappoint.

Wei Wuxian teases Jiang Cheng about his list of standards for a chick: She should have natural beauty, be virtuous and caring, from a good family, not too talkative, with a gentle voice, and not too capable. Also she should not spend too much money. Drunken running ensues.

Cue Maple Leaf Rag by Scott Joplin

(more behind the cut)

Much of the fandom has decided this list is a good fit for Nie Huaisang himself, and it sorta is. But he is both talkative and unvirtuous, what with all the current sneakiness, and all the eventual murders. 

This also definitely doesn't fit Wen Qing because she's capable as hell.  

This list is, however, a 100% a match for Jiang Yanli. Not in a weird, Jin Guangyao way--a lot of men want to marry a woman like their sister.  In a gender-divided and generation-divided society, a man’s sister might be the only woman he’s ever known well. Jiang Cheng adores Yanli and she’s his ideal model of a woman, as opposed to his mother, who...isnt.  

All these robes and talismans over the door do nothing to stop Lan Wangji from strolling in.  

Okay so - Lan Wangji is the senior disciple of the Lan Clan, yea? There is no way that patrolling the guest area is in any way his job. He is just walking around here at night specifically to see what Wei Wuxian is doing.

I already did a gifpost of the boys and their totally nonsexual horseplay, over here. I’ll just add, for sad factor, that Jiang Cheng is play-choking Wei Wuxian when they’re all on the bed, and later in the running-and-crying episode he is gonna for-real choke him. Foreshadowing! or maybe just coincidence!

One fun thread running through the young-cultivators episodes is that Nie Huaisang is legit terrified of Lan Wangji while also having a major aesthetic crush on him. Look at how flustered he is here, trying to act sober while also checking him out. 

Lan Wangji is shocked and visibly upset - what are you guys doing? This is not his busting face, this is, for a moment,��his vulnerable and disillusioned face. He is super not used to what normal people are like. 

Wei Wuxian doesn't lie or otherwise try to get off the hook, which has got to have Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang grinding their teeth in frustration. He invites Lan Wangji to join them for a drink. LWJ cites a the “no drinking on campus” rule and WWX tries to convince him to chill. 

Then we have this lovely coordinated faint by the boys, to get out of going to get punished. Nie Huaisang has been practicing fainting in front of a mirror just in case he ever needs a skill like that in the future. 

Wei Wuxian keeps trying to turn this into a date. Eventually Lan Wangji is so upset he admits he can’t take all three of them by himself. 

Then the boys run away fake-barfing and Wei Wuxian hits Lan Wangji with a talisman. 

Steal His Agency That’s What You’re Gonna Do

What Wei Wuxian does to Lan Wanji here is definitely wrong. But it's not entirely a disaster.  It allows some crucial information to be shared between them, and it results in Wei Wuxian getting the utter shit beat out of him and never doing this again. I mean, he continues to mind-control his enemies and their eventual corpses, but he doesn't intentionally violate a friend or ally's autonomy in the future. Uhh not counting that whole golden core surgery-without-consent situation. And probably some other situations I’ve forgotten. He improves slightly, okay? 

It’s important to note, incidentally, that the Lan rules about drinking and other “vices” should not be viewed through a Christian lens. The Lans are neither puritans nor ascetics (look at their clothes, furniture, and jewelry, for starters). Being drunk is forbidden probably because it’s a loss of self-control. 

Speaking of self-control, mad props to Wang Yibo for being able to have zero physical reaction to fingers snapping in his face.

Drunk Lan Wangji

Under duress, Lan Wangji knocks back a cup of wine and promptly passes most of the way out. 

Wei Wuxian puts Lan Wangji into bed not unkindly, but pretty much like a sack of potatoes. Compare this to how tenderly he handles Lan Wangji the next time he’s drunk. 

WWX tells LWJ to call him Wei Gege, and giggles. Is this a term of endearment in this context? So far the various boys are calling each other -xiong, not -ge or gege.  In Western media, men calling each other “bro” is basically saying “no homo,” but brotherhood and sisterhood in C-Drama is often a way of indicating stronger love than friendship, without saying whether it's sexual or not. 

They finally start to have a conversation, and when Lan Wangji explains that no-one can touch his headband except, etc etc, Wei Wuxian stops trying to touch it. So at least he's not a handsy bastard in addition to all his other faults. 

Wei Wuxian tells Lan Wangji that his clan is boring and women won't want to marry him. Lan Wangji says that's fine. On one level this is the show acknowledging that he's gay, but I think he's responding in a gender-neutral way; he doesn't want to marry anyone. Marriage, from his perspective, is the literal worst. 

We don't know how he felt about his father, but he definitely loved his mother deeply, and she had a profoundly unhappy marriage, in which her husband did not provide companionship and her children were taken from her.

A note about all that: The dynamics of heterosexual marriages in The Untamed are not based on contemporary companionate marriage. Sex and reproduction is a wife's job in this world, and giving a gentry woman the option to choose her husband is radical. Wei Wuxian is the only one who dares say that Jiang Yanli should have a choice when Jin Guangshan casually tries to give her to his son in front of everyone.  

OP made this today but will totally reuse it when episode 23 rolls around

So Lan Wangji’s parents' marriage was extremely problematic but not necessarily for the reasons it would be in contemporary terms. Having signed on to marry Lan Dad, Mom would have expected to live together and get laid regularly (important for health, in some traditional views, regardless of love/no love) and to have the company of her children. Instead, she was isolated. Lan Dad wanted to have it both ways and so even though he loved her and apparently hooked up with her sometimes, he didn't do his duty by her. She didn't love him but she did her duty. 

Wei Wuxian continues to not get it, calling Lan Wangji dull and babbling about Lan Wangji’s parents until he realizes that LWJ is an orphan like him. 

A nice shift happens here. Once the penny drops, Wei Wuxian doesn't ask a single additional question - he just sees - by reading Lan Wangji’s face - what the deal is, and shares his own story to show he understands. 

This is the first time Wei Wuxian mentions being chased by dogs, which is kind of a big deal, because why was he left all alone when his parents died? 

Why didn't anyone take him in before Jiang Fengmian found him? How isolated are independent cultivators in this world? 

Tea Time

Lan Qiren and Lan Xichen are having tea, and the Lan Clan is so uptight they don't touch each other's teacups. I don't know what this thing is called so I'm going to call it a tea speculum. 

Lan Qiren is back from the cultivation conference and says the red crack plague is happening over in Qinghe where the Nie clan lives.  Lan Xichen fills him in on the water demon, specifically saying Wei Wuxian figured out the connection to the red crack dudes, and explaining who WWX is, as if Lan QIren hadn't already thrown stuff at him and threatened to eventually kill him. 

Fun fact that I just noticed this week so didn't make it into earlier posts: In Episode 46, when Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian are in the Jiang ancestral hall, WWX says he was often punished to kneel there, and LWJ said that they heard about this in Gusu.  

So when WWX came to Gusu he already had a reputation as a troublemaker, and the Lan brothers were aware of it.   

Busted and Beaten

A Lan snitch comes in to say that Wei Wuxian has successfully corrupted Lan Wangji, which really shouldn’t cause as much surprise as it does.

“Wei Wuxian got drunk”

“Lan Wangji got drunk”

Lan Xichen takes a moment to consider carefully whether Wei Wuxian is a good friend for his little brother and whether perhaps he was too hasty in throwing them together. Ha ha ha no he doesn’t. 

On the punishment porch, Lan Xichen tries to lecture Lan Wangji in a calm way, but Lan Qiren wants to beat him and Lan Wangji wants to get beat. Wei Wuxian can’t understand why Lan Wangji doesn’t let him take the blame for the drinking. 

Lan Qiren goes way the fuck overboard with this punishment because he's angry--losing control and losing his sense of proportion--and Lan Xichen is shocked. The drone camera watching from above is also shocked.  

Lan Qiren has a few (very few) redeeming qualities, but his extreme rigidity and chronic resentment of anyone he perceives as bad are serious problems. His nephews are both struggling with complex moral quandaries as they get older, and he is absolutely no help to them in resolving their conflicts.

This is definitely...a style of parenting & teaching, but you can see how poorly it works, with Lan Wangji straight up saying “fuck it” after many years of conformity.  Lan Xichen is devoted to the middle path and tries to be obedient. But he is actually not walking anywhere near the middle path, as he gets pulled into colluding with a murderer at the same time as getting dragged onto his brother’s carnival ride. These men need parenting that isn’t so, uh, fucking stupid. (Yes, grown adults still need good parenting; watch Go Ahead if you doubt me) 

Wei Wuxian initially yells and falls down when he gets hit, but then he sees Lan Wangji is taking the beating without any reaction and he tries to do the same. 

Aftermath

Jiang Yanli gently lectures the boys, blaming Jiang Cheng for Wei Wuxian's drinking.  Jesus Christ, he's the younger sibling, could you just NOT, Yanli?  

Both boys ask Yanli not to tell their parents. The boys bicker about who's at fault and then Wei Wuxian shifts to baby voice and starts whining to Yanli about the pain. 

Yanli tells him to suck it up, and says after school she'll -- ok and I know this will be a surprise for everyone -- make soup for them. The boys immediately get back on the same team, which is team Please Put Meat In the Soup.

There's a nice character building moment for Wei Wuxian here. When he sees Lan Xichen he initially turns away to avoid running into him, but then he adults-up and goes to face him and greet him, giving him a half of a bow because of the pain, the pain. Rather than complaining about his punishment he meekly asks if he's broken another rule. 

Lan Xichen tells him that he did wrong but that Lan Qiren’s punishment was too harsh, and then in what is one of my favorite Lan Xichen moments, invites Wei Wuxian to use the cold spring to heal, but doesn't invite Jiang Cheng to go with him even though Jiang Cheng also was beaten. Lan Xichen, Matchmaker Auntie Extraordinaire. 

Then he answers Wei Wuxian’s question about his mom by saying she was just like Wei Wuxian and drove Lan Qiran up the wall. Jiang Cheng's reaction to that is really sweet. He does enjoy Wei Wuxian at the same time as being constantly irritated by him. 

Lan Xichen does his patented “breaking off in the middle of saying something and leaving out a chunk of the story” maneuver, although this time he doesn't include a flute solo. 

OP is mildly obsessed with Xuan Lu’s shoulders in this outfit. Also Yanli has an interesting sword, that's got some wood carving similar to Subian, but without the organic look, which OP only noticed because of screen capping Xuan Lu’s shoulders.  

Club Ruohan

Wen Qing continues to be pretty and slightly evil at this stage, sending magic fire notes to her boss using this talisman that is definitely floating in the air and not just hanging from a string. 

Wen Ruohan is in the mosh pit with his zombie groupies while he reads Wen Qing’s extremely vague status update and says "it all makes sense." 

Reach out and touch faith

Soundtrack

Maple Leaf Rag by Scott Joplin Personal Jesus by Depeche Mode

Writing Prompt

How did Wei Wuxian’s parents die?

Admin Notes

I’m going to start spacing out my “first part” and “second part” posts by a few days.  I’ll update this post to link up the second part once I post it, and my masterpost is always up to date. 

Also: if you want more of my original content but don’t want to follow my whole blog (not following is fine!), I keep a pinboard of fun stuff at the top of my blog. I try to post original content at least once a week.

Continued in the second part later this week!

[rachelbethhines]

Robin Hood and His Merry Band

list of characters for an original series I’m working on 

Alan-a-Dale - the gloomy and cynical bard, the grumpy voice of reason who doesn’t give a fuck, wonders why he hangs out with these crazies, knows it’s cause they’re family to him but won’t admit it out loud, besties with Friar Tuck even though they never agree on anything, is clearly a bi disaster 

The Archdeacon of Canterbury - The aging head cleric of the church of England. He supports King Richard but is becoming increasingly impotent because of his failing health. Still holds a lot of political power because of his title though.

The Azure Assassin - A deadly mercenary and rival to Robin Hood. Orphaned at a young age Azure had to steal to survive. She stowed away on a pirate ship at the age of ten and has spent the pass eight years studying fighting techniques the world over. They call her the Azure Assassin because her blue eyes are the last thing you’ll see before dying. She’s gained a modest fortune and fame as a spy and assassin, however she can never stay in one play too long due to her reputation getting out. Prince John has offered her a pardon and a place in high society if she brings in Robin Hood’s head. Shame she’s fallen in love with his brother Will Scarlet, as that complicates matters.  

The Bishop of Hereford - Conservative asshole who supports Prince John’s rule and shares his beliefs on ‘bringing order to the kingdom’. Wants to usurp the Archdeacon as the head of the church. Is Friar Tuck’s and Sister Clara’s arch nemesis.

Dame Brianna DuBois - Also known as the The Black Knight, DuBois is loyal to the throne of England and whoever sits upon it. She’s Prince John’s personal bodyguard and unbeknownst to all a double agent for King Richard who is in hiding. However she is conflicted when her duty places her lover Yua in jeopardy. Yes, she’s totally a butch lesbian.   

The Duke of Essex - Prince John’s adviser and right hand man. He only cares for power for power’s sake but is sneaky and conniving and willing to play the long game to get it. He prefers poison to swords, but is surprisingly good at hand to hand combat when cornered. Has a pet snake. It’s the only living thing that he loves.    

Elenore of England - Prince John and King Richard’s sister and Maid Marian’s mother. She died when negotiations during a worker dispute turned violent. Unable to quell the people’s rage, she was stuck down during a riot. Richard, blaming himself for losing his temper and causing things to escalate has since tried to follow in her footsteps and become peacemaker. Prince John went the opposite route and blamed the ungrateful peasants (criminals in his mind) and resented Richard for even bothering to negotiating in the first place.   

Friar Tuck - The jovial and optimistic heart of the team. He tries to keep everyone’s spirits up and believes that helping people is the ultimate expression of god’s love. Is a hopeless romantic and also very, very gay. He butts heads with more traditional leaders of the church often. He also has a not so secret crush on his best friend Alan. 

Guy of Gisbourne - From pauper to nobleman, Guy is Robin’s opposite in everyway. He crawled up from the bottom rung by using and stepping on others and he’s always looking for the opportunity to climb the ranks. Don’t let his foppish ways fool you though, he is both a cunning and ruthless foe and isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. His latest scheme however is to marry Maid Maiden and become next in line for the throne as Prince John has no other heirs save his ward.  

King Richard - Good Richard the Lionhearted is no longer a bloodthirsty crusader in this alternate universe but a peacemaker. He wishes to end wars, not start them, however his more abrasive, uncouth, and impulsive nature can often clash with his loftier goals. Many feel the king would do better to stay at home and tend to domestic matters instead of concerning himself with the conflicts of other far off lands. At the start of the story he has disappeared on one of his diplomatic visits. In reality Prince John has stuck a deal with the king’s enemies and he is currently on the run. 

Lady Tiffany - Little John’s little wife and the daughter of the Sherriff of Nottingham. She acts as the gang’s ‘man on the inside’ helping Robin Hood sneak in and out of places and feeding the team needed information. She’s stubborn and spoiled but also very kind hearted. She usually can get her father to give into her demands with just a pout and when that doesn’t work a full on tantum will do. She a woman who knows what she wants and what she wants is her man. Unfortunately daddy dreariest would never approve of their union and so Friar Tuck marries them in secret.  

Little John - Robin’s best friend and right hand man. He’s a simple man who loves life’s simple pleasures, good food, good friends, and a good brawl from time to time. He adores his partner, Tiffany and would like nothing more than to marry her for real, in a real church, in front of the whole world. However their relationship must remained hidden from her father, the Sheriff, since the violent lawman would sooner see him hanged then have a thief for a son-in-law.  

Lord Locksley - Robin’s and Will’s father. He is arrested for ‘not paying taxes’ but in reality it’s for supporting King Richard and secretly helping the displaced monarch. His arrest leads to Robin and Will becoming outlaws and the series kicks off two years later.   

Maid Marian - Prince John’s ward and niece. Her mother died when she was young and her beloved uncle adopted her. Prince John is the only parent she’s ever known and she at first believes him to be a kind and just man. She’s completely oblivious of Prince’s John’s underhanded dealings and oppression of the poor and at first is skeptical of Robin Hood. However as the two grow closer, Marian learns how harsh the real world is and just how much her father figure has lied to her. 

Miss Yua - Maid Marian’s lady-in-waiting and best friend. She’s the daughter of Sir Ivanhoe and longs to be a knight as well. She’s a stickler for rules and doesn’t trust Robin Hood and his gang of thieves. At first anyways, over time she too learns of Prince John’s cruelty and even becomes a victim of the tyrant’s schemes. Which puts her in direct conflict with her love, Brianna DuBois.  

Much the Miller's Son - born as Midge the miller’s daughter, the young Much longs to be accepted as a boy. As such he’s ditched his dresses, cut his hair, and ran away to Sherwood Forrest in order to be free from society’s expectations. The rest of the merry band accepts Much for who he really is, but at only 13 won’t let him join their gang. He still winds up caught up in their misadventures anyways due to his refusal to listen to anybody, and his determination to get away from his overbearing mother. 

Nurse Agnes - Maid Marian’s wet nurse and the closest thing to a mother that she has. Agnes believes in the ‘old ways’ and is very superstitious. She’s also very critical of royalty in general, but is smart enough not to say so out loud. She’s tried to raise Marian into a better person than Prince John, but eventually was dismissed once Marian had come of age. Since leaving the court Agnes has become the witch of the woods and a healer for the poor. 

Prince John - The main antagonist. Prince John believes that he needs to bring order to the kingdom of England and feels like his brother King Richard has neglected his duties as ruler and placed the kingdom in danger. He'll do whatever it takes to protect the country including subjecting it’s undesirables.  

Robin Hood - Leader of the Merry Band and archer extraordinaire, Robin Hood had to go on the lam when his father was arrest for ‘treason’. While his first priority was to keep his baby brother, Will, safe, the two of them met other outcasts in need over the years have built up an underwound network of rebels who fight against Prince John’s rule. Seemingly suave and cool at first, Robin is actually a bundle of nerves as he tries desperately to keep his friends and family safe...even if it’s mostly from themselves. His world is turned upside down though when he meets the lovely Maid Marian. 

Sheriff of Nottingham - The spiteful and cruel sheriff tries to keep the small town of Nottingham under his thumb. He hates Robin Hood and his Merry Band with a passion and sees their continued exitance as a personal insult. The only thing that will deter him from his goal of putting those outlaws in their place is his devotion to his beloved daughters Tiffany. Who distracts him with her seemingly impulsive and shallow whims.   

Sir Ivanhoe - A respected knight who once served under King Richard has returned home only to find that his king has not made the journey back as planned. He suspects that Prince John is up to no good, but is afraid to make any risky moves so long as his daughter Yua lives among the court. Her safety is the most important thing in the world to him. 

Sister Clara - The resident nerd of Sherwood Forrest and the brains of the team. Clara had joined a convent in order to receive an education and to study science, however her experiments were frowned upon by more traditional leaders of the church, like the Bishop of Hereford. She’s since renounced her monastic vows and has joined Robin Hood’s Merry Band in the pursuit of science! She’s allowed free rein on the sole condition that she doesn’t blow up the camp.  She still manages to blow up the camp, at least once a month. Still her inventions are invaluable to the team and she’s absolutely feral with her chim-bombs.  

The Trapper - A mysterious hermit who sometimes visits the local pub. He’ll often corner patrons with crazy drunken ramblings and loves to give Robin cryptic prophecies and disjoined ‘clues’ whenever they run into each other. (turns out this is an act and he’s really a spy for King Richard)

Will Scarlett - Robin’s younger brother. Will was 15 when they lost their father and now at 17 wants revenge. He’s a hothead and is constantly picking fights with everyone and anyone. While he is dismissive of Robin’s overprotectiveness, he both loves and admires his brother. Even tries to emulate him in some ways. He also would like to think of himself as a smooth talking clever con artist and ladies man but more often then not his temper gets the better of him. Like most teens he’s obsessed with the latest fashion tends and loves to wear fancy clothes (that he’s usually stolen) He’s favorite article of clothing is his impractical red feathered hat. He’s in love with Azure and is best friends with Much. 

[dragon-overlord-yuu]

Twin AU? Twin AU Lore under the cut

Ren Amamiya

Younger twin

Bisexual disaster

Himbo™

Actually it’s the brand of himbo where he’s high intelligence and low wisdom

Ren is ‘our’ Joker

Parents divorced when he was 12. He stayed with his dad in Inaba while their mom took Akira to Tokyo.

Mischievous and cheeky, with a flair for the dramatics

Always gotta be doing The Most™

Probably gets turned on by danger

This part of his personality gets toned down once he’s falsely charged with assault and shipped off to Tokyo on probation, turning him more meek and quiet

Reunites with his brother after four years whilst investigating Madarame’s palace

While he is considered the leader, the Phantom Thieves are split into two factions. The one lead by Ren consists of Ryuji, Ann, Morgana, and Akechi (when he does eventually join)

The reason for this is if Ren’s faction gets worn out in battle, Akira will step in with his and finish the fight and vice versa

Has a bit of an inferiority complex because he perceives Akira as the smarter “better” twin

Tends to doubt himself as a leader and often tries to overcompensate with stylish theatrics

Love interest is Akechi

Akira Kurusu

Older twin, by like, five minutes. He likes to rub this fact into Ren’s face a lot

Gay af

Tired™

Seems to be the “better” twin: mature, polite, and subdued with perfect grades. But this is merely a mask forced upon him by his mother. He is just as much of a little shit as Ren is

His true personality is quite dry and snarky

Attends Kosei and is friends with Yusuke

He is aware of Yusuke’s situation with Madarame but feels powerless to do anything about it.

The least he could do is sneak Yusuke food while Madarame was out on his exhibitions.

Mom remarried a wealthy man who owns a tech company. Akira hates his guts.

Because of their newfound status, Mom became much more stricter on Akira to the point of being suffocating

Expecting nothing less than perfect grades, putting strict curfews on him, controlling everything from how he dresses and who he’s friends with. It got to a point where she put a tracker on Akira’s phone so she can monitor every place he goes and who he talks to.

When news reached of Ren’s arrival to Tokyo on probation, Mom forbid any contact with him out of fear of Ren being a bad influence on Akira.

He reunited with Ren during the Madarame arc when he unwittingly got sucked into his palace whilst bringing Yusuke food

He’s distant with Ren at first because he was terrified of his mother finding out he was talking to him

Akira gets Raoul as his Persona, but he does not have the wild card ability like his brother

He awakens Raoul when he wanders into Madarame’s palace a second time and saw Ren in danger, choosing to save his brother rather than listen to his mother and ignore him to save his own reputation

After all, Ren is still his baby brother and Akira’s big brother instinct never quite left him

His thief code name is “Jack” to fit with the card theme with Joker

Second in command of the Phantom Thieves, leading his own team consisting of Yusuke, Makoto, and Haru with Futaba as their navigator

Mother is dealt with in Mementos and he leaves the toxic environment with his parents to live with Ren at Leblanc

With his newfound freedom, he starts going on a true rebellious streak from there, starting with piercings and punk rock clothing his mother never allowed him to wear

Ren makes fun of him for it and calls him a Hot Topic Gremlin

Black nail polish all day everyday. He sometimes makes Ren wear it with him so they can match

Love interest is Yusuke

Gen/Story headcanons

Ren prefers to go into battle with brute force, Akira prefers to go in with careful precision and strategy. Because of this, they compliment each other nicely as leaders

Futaba Bodyguard Squad™

Really, whoever dares harm Futaba will be in for one confusing ass-whoopin 

A few times before changing their mother’s heart in Mementos, Ren would offer to switch places so that Akira could have a taste of freedom for a little while

After a particularly bad fight with their mother, Akira attempted to storm Mementos alone to change his mother’s heart. He quickly found himself overwhelmed by shadows. He then wakes up in front of the train station in Shibuya

He doesn’t know who saved him but he remembers seeing a black mask and a striped suit before passing out.

Akira disliked Akechi the moment he saw him, but when he realized his brother was in love with him, he tries to be civil for his sake.

Ren/Akechi and Akira/Yusuke double dates 

Ren and Akechi tend to get overly competitive, as they do. Akira and Yusuke look on with their relatively functional relationship wonder why they keep inviting them

“This is why we can’t have nice things...” 

Akira wanted to be angry with Akechi after his betrayal and attempt to murder Ren, but when he saw how broken Ren was after Akechi’s death in Shido’s palace, he realized just how much Akechi meant to him and finds himself sympathizing with him instead.

While the other PT are just kinda like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Akira was mostly bothered by how indifferent they seemed to Ren’s pain

The PT ask to steal Shido’s treasure literally the next day and a livid Akira absolutely rails into them for not giving Ren time to grieve and being so inconsiderate of him, expecting him to be a leader when he’s mourning for someone so dear to him.

He watches over Ren for the next couple of weeks, helping him recover just enough for them to raid Shido’s palace

But Ren is still overcome with anger and grief, he nearly kills Shido’s shadow to avenge Akechi. Akira had to step in and stop him. 

“Though he deserves death, killing him won’t bring back Akechi, Ren. Enough” 

During the fight with Yaldabaoth, Arsene and Raoul fuse into Satanael

When Maruki’s reality kicks in, he’s the fourth party member along with Ren, Akechi, and Sumire.

Akechi: “Joker’s enraged? I kinda like it”

Akira forcibly removed him from the premises for horny crimes  

[eachandeverydimension]

MDZS/CQL Fic Rec List

A fic rec list for mdzs/cql focusing on wangxian and zhuiling, because it’s criminal how many good fics aren’t on any rec lists right now!

My first time making a fic rec list, so be gentle please. If any of the authors would like me to remove their fics, just let me know!

All fics are completed.

Lan Zhan/Wei Ying (Wangxian)

Canon-verse

Something Yet to Learn by Glitterbombshell

Synopsis: Wei Wuxian is asked (under duress) to babysit a class of tiny Lan cultivators for just a few minutes. A few minutes turns into an hour, turns into two hours, turns into an impromptu literal field trip and now there's an entire class that is weeks ahead of their curriculum, their most junior disciples have apparently imprinted on Wei Wuxian like baby birds, and Lan Qiren has no one to blame but himself.

蓝色生死恋; a blue love (to live and to die for) byyiqie

Synopsis: Wei Wuxian separates his life, without noticing, into three chapters. Some days, they’re hard to look at, hard to read, harder to know he wrote all of them himself. Some of the words are in blood.

asymptotic by chinxe

Synopsis: The members of the Lan Clan have never been particularly well-known for their good judgement when it comes to matters of the heart.

Which is why it should come as a surprise to no one when Lan Wangji falls in love with an actual ghost.

Linger in the Sun by etymologyplayground

Synopsis:  Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji find themselves cursed, unable to see or hear each other. They figure things out anyway.

Comments: casefic (or in this fandom’s case, nighthuntfic)

seldom all they seem by Fahye

Synopsis: or, one hundred and thirty-three principles of the Gusu Lan, pertaining to the state of marriage

***

He bows to Wei Wuxian, sword in hand, sleeves falling properly. Wei Wuxian bows in return, and the sect leaders begin the opening courtesies, and for all of ten minutes Lan Wangji is under the impression that he is betrothed to a boy who is perfectly normal and acceptable apart from an unfortunate tendency to fidget with his clothes.

That impression does not last.

Comments: Arranged marriage AU

concessions to love by besanii

Synopsis: Conceding to love is not admitting defeat.

(In which there is an arranged marriage with at least one unwilling party. At first.)

Comments: Another very good arranged marriage AU

A Match Made In Heaven by Ariana

Synopsis:  After getting fed up once and for all with Wei Wuxian getting into trouble, Madam Yu decides it’s time to call in the matchmaker.

Comments: Can you tell that I love the arranged marriage trope? Yeah, it’s probably obvious HAHA

Perfectly Arranged by mondengel

Synopsis: Three nights before his wedding to an omega from Yunmeng, Lan Wangji meets Wei Yuandao.

Comments: One last arranged marriage AU, this time round with mistaken identity thrown in!

Accidents Will Happen by mrsronweasley

Synopsis:  Wei Wuxian finds himself in a whole new situation.

Comments: Canon post-series mpreg

Desiderium by seredemia

Synopsis: After the war is over, the imperial realm can finally breathe a sigh of relief. While there is much celebration to be had, the price of war claims the life of their emperor, thus throwing the realm into uncertainty. Prince Lan Wangji must now watch as his older brother inherits the throne, bearing the weight of the legacy their father left behind.

That, however, is the least of his worries. As the lands gather in celebration, Prince Lan Wangji is reunited with a man he has not seen in thirteen years. Wei Wuxian's smile is as captivating as ever; and with each day that passes, the prince struggles more and more to stay away from him.

Comments: Ancient china au.

The Absolutely True Story of the Yiling Patriarch: A Manifesto in Many Parts by aubreyli

Synopsis:  In which the junior disciples (namely, Lan Jingyi, Ouyang Zizhen, and a reluctant Lan Sizhui) turn to RPF in an attempt to rehabilitate Wei Wuxian's reputation so that he and Hanguang-jun can get together and get married and live happily ever after. It's... surprisingly effective.

Concerning Rabbits by pomme (manta)

Synopsis:  In which Lan Wangji navigates life, family, grief, friendship, and love through the years—with rabbits.

Sleeping in Paradise by daiki

Synopsis:  (prompt: AU where Demonic Cultivation shattered Wei Wuxian's soul before Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli's deaths and he went into a death-like state. Since nobody's ever done demonic arts before, nobody's sure if Wei Wuxian is alive or dead so they preserve his body and watch over him.)

Modern!AU

Operation Old Men by Chiharu

Synopsis: An ill-fated parent teacher conference reunites Jin Ling's wayward uncle with Sizhui's father. AKA: A matchmaking disaster as told by Jin Ling, Sizhui, and Jingyi.

And they were roommates... by harriet_vane

Synopsis:  A fic based lightly on a reddit post— "I (21f) have a crush on my roommate (20f). I can't figure out if she actually likes me back or not or is just being friendly. She cooks for me and knows all my favorite foods, and brings me lunch. She buys me anything I want, and her family all joke about our wedding. I once fell asleep on her lap and when I woke up she was stroking my hair and I almost had a stroke. I can't figure out if she's flirting with me or not. Help!"

Blink by Menuridae

Synopsis: Mo Xuanyu's family has set him up on a blind date with a rich young master after learning he is gay. However, he already has plans for that night. Instead of going on the date himself, Mo Xuanyu enlists Wei Wuxian to go as a substitute. Wei Wuxian must act like his best friend for the night before kindly turning down Mo Xuanyu's date.

Only, Wei Wuxian finds out that turning down Mo Xuanyu's date is possibly the hardest thing he has had to do in a long time.

from me to you by Ceta

Synopsis:  Or; Three-time Golden Globe recipient Wei WuXian and seven-time Grammy award recipient Lan WangJi’s love story through the eyes of the internet.

PWP

Fair Play by threerings

Synopsis: “Do you ever want to try out my role?” He propped himself up on one elbow and looked at his husband. Sweat still glistened across his bare chest from their recent exertions and Lan Wangji’s expression was soft and open.

“Hm.” The sound wasn’t either a negative or a positive.

“What does that mean?” Wei Wuxian asked. “Have you thought about it?”

“Wei Ying wants that?” Lan Wangji met his gaze, his eyebrows raised.

“Hmm.” Now it was his turn to hum noncommittally. “It’s not that I don’t enjoy this. Obviously, I do.” His smile twisted into a bit of a smirk as he gestured between their naked bodies. He could still feel the imprint of his husband’s strong hands on his hips, on his right thigh. Still feel where he’d pounded him until he begged for mercy. “But it feels so good...I might like to make you feel that good, too.”

Sun on Stone by Gotcocomilk

Synopsis: It was almost five. It was almost time for the guards to emerge, for careful cultivators to clamber up the walls and wear fine white robes into the sunshine.

It was time for the Cloud Recesses to awaken, and they were in full view of where those eyes would show.

Wei Wuxian had never felt hotter.

Comments: public sex, exhibitionism

24 Hours by tailor31415

Synopsis: Lan WangJi is always so attentive towards Wei WuXian, giving him what he needs before he even realizes he needs it. This time, Wei WuXian wants to give something back.

Comments: Part 1 of Can't Have WangXian Without Kink, an excellent kinky series.

Everything I Hold Dear by sealdog

Synopsis: For Lan Wangji's birthday, Wei Wuxian figures out how to make a duplicate of himself. Every day shenanigans ensue.

Comments: Threesome PWP with two Wei Wuxians and Lan Wangji.

Jin Ling/Lan Sizhui (Zhuiling)

Just the sight of you (is getting the best out of me) by Ibijau

Synopsis: Jin Ling wants all that Lan Sizhui will let him have, even when he knows it's needy of him. When they're caught having sex, Jin Ling loses the boy he loves and realises he'll have to fight to get him back.

Comments: Jin Ling’s efforts to get Sizhui back are so sweet. A treat to read.

A Civil Combpaign by Ariaste

Synopsis: “And,” said one of the pompous ministers, “there’s the matter of a marriage to consider as well!” 

Jin Ling, who at the beginning of that sentence had expected to slam into the very last wall of his patience and lose his temper entirely, paused. “A what?”

Thing was… it wasn’t such a bad idea.

Comments: Jin Ling decides that Lan Sizhui would make the perfect spouse. The first fic that turned me onto mdzs, highly recommended. Funny and touching. Also recommended is it’s equally good sequel below.

Besieged by Ariaste

Synopsis: “Mn,” says Lan Zhan out of the blue one night. He has been playing guqin on the other side of the room without speaking for two hours, and Wei Wuxian has been noodling with some new ideas for talismans for nearly as long--one of those easy, quiet evenings of companionable silence, until Lan Zhan has thrown this enormous tantrum out of nowhere.

---

(A companion fic to "A Civil Combpaign". Read that one first.)

Comments: Lan Zhan and Wei Wuxian’s POV of the matchmaking shenanigans that took place in A Civil Combpaign,

[casper-writes-stuff]

I Think I’m In Love

ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21921265

Summary: Virgil falls for Roman, and the realization hits him pretty hard. But... It's not a scary realization, like he thought it would be.

In which I'm five days late for Virgil's birthday, but here's his birthday fic that got way out of hand. I went into this expecting like no plot and Virgil simply thinking about how gay he is for Roman and then Roman refused to be ignored and it just kind of went from there. I've dedicated this to Max ( @max-is-tired) cause honestly? They've helped me get out of my writing funk lately and also they've been super excited for me to finish it since I sprung the idea for the fic on them in the first place lmao.

It wasn’t exactly a soft realization, when Virgil had it. It wasn’t like Patton telling him he loved him so much, and that he wouldn’t know what to do without his friendship. It wasn’t like Logan handing him a book on something Virgil was really interested in, wanting to discuss it with him and Virgil figuring out that was Logan telling him that he loved him like a brother. Nothing with Remus was soft, but realizing Virgil cared about him, too, wasn’t nearly as jarring as this.

Honestly, realizing how much he loved each of his friends never hit Virgil quite as hard as it did when he realized he was in love with one Roman Grimm. It was like a bag of bricks dropped from a few feet straight onto his chest.

Virgil had come up with a particularly creative insult and it had left Roman keeled over, wheezing so hard all that was escaping his mouth was high pitched noises, not a breath of air between them. He’d crossed his arms in triumph, feeling like he’d won that days bickering.

It took him all of ten seconds before he realized his expression wasn’t the smirk he’d been going for, but an overly sappy, love-filled smile at Roman’s laughter. And that’s when the bricks dropped and all air rushed out of his lungs, his eyes widening as he watched Roman gather himself.

He… didn’t run. Didn’t even consider it before Roman had recovered, made a comment that prompted Virgil into a response that sent him cackling again. While the conversation continues, Virgil thinks.

He thinks about his last venture into the dating world, and how it ended in such a massive disaster that he did his best to jade himself to feeling like that again, because what’s the point of butterflies when they’re only going to rip through your heart on their way out?

But… being around Roman doesn’t give him butterflies. Strangely enough, Virgil feels like he’s the one with wings, when he’s with the flamboyant actor. Being with Roman makes Virgil feel like he could do anything he wanted to, so long as he had him by his side. Doesn’t matter that they’d be bickering and insulting each other the entire journey. If anything, that’d make Virgil feel more confident that he can actually pull it off, whatever it was he decided to do that day.

And honestly, now that he’s thinking about it, Virgil gets kind of reckless when he and Roman are in the same vicinity. Dee has even pointed out to him before a venture into an abandoned amusement park to go ghost hunting that Roman had an easier time convincing Virgil to do something stupid and kind of dangerous than Patton did trying to get him to sleep.

Virgil had, naturally, told him to shove that stick in his ass down his own throat. He may be spending a little too much time with Roman’s brother, if he was being honest with himself. Dee had only scoffed, rolling his eyes before letting Virgil leave the house to meet up with an eccentric blond.

That venture into the old, rusty amusement park was one of the best nights of Virgil’s life, if he didn’t count being almost crushed to death under an unsteady beam in one of the haunted houses. He and Roman had so much fun getting scared shitless by every creak and groan of the old rides. The funhouse mirrors had sent Virgil into laughing fits when every single one somehow only showed Roman as his normal self while he himself got the different appearances.

Thinking back on it, there was definitely a ghost fucking with them that entire adventure, but Virgil was having too much fun exchanging witty insults with Roman to really care. He’d had fun, and really wasn’t that something? Cause Virgil… Virgil didn’t have fun. He mildly enjoyed things while anxiety tickled the back of his mind, making him overthink every single action that was a result of him not thinking enough. The anxiety faded, the longer he knew the people he hung out with regularly, but it never really went away long enough for him to forget it was there until something that needed it happened.

Virgil was about to start thinking about how Roman managed to get him out from under the old rotting wood of a support beam before the haunted house got worse when Roman himself interrupted his thinking.

“Virgil. Vee. V-Man. Very Unimportant. Walking Existential Crisis. Vladimir--”

“Roman if you finish equating to me to the president of Russia, your face will no longer be as pretty as you think it is,” Virgil interrupted, his eyes finally focusing back on Roman’s expression. Which was filled with a confused concern.

Oh shit, did he space out?

“Well sorry, you stopped responding to me for a minute there, and your face went from all “Roman is a dumbass” smirk to some kind of mushy, gooey grin.”

Virgil scrunched up his nose in disgust at the comparison.

“Ew. Don’t ever call me mushy or gooey again, and I’ll let you live.”

Roman snorted, rolling his eyes at Virgil’s false disgust of all things soft.

Which, rude. Virgil had a reputation, he couldn’t just let himself be called mushy. What would his pretend fans think!

“I’d like to see you try and kill me, Very Short. You can’t even reach my shoulders without my assistance, you think you can aim for my heart from all the way down there?”

Virgil’s eyes narrowed while Roman’s grin widened, turning into a challenge.

There was exactly two beats of silence before Roman bolted for the door, Virgil chasing after him.

Virgil stops thinking about his feelings after that, stops thinking beyond strategy to capture Roman and somehow give him the biggest noogie of his life for daring to bring up Virgil’s height.

And it just kind of… continues. Virgil feels comfortable around Roman in a way he hadn’t before, despite Virgil never thinking he was ever uncomfortable around him prior to his revelation. Maybe it’s because he’s aware of the feelings now, and he recognizes his actions for what they are; pure, genuine affection and romantic attraction.

Over the next few weeks, Virgil can’t help but test the waters a little bit. He starts flirting back when Roman sends him some stupid pick up line he thinks is funny. Several times they’ve gone for hours, trying out-flirt each other and many times Virgil has won because Roman can’t let go of the overly ridiculous lines that focus on sex and Virgil is actually flirting so Roman eventually gets too flustered to continue.

Along with the flirting he gets… a lot more touchy. It’s not exactly subtle, nor is it obvious the touching is another result of his discovery, considering it’s really just Virgil letting himself rise to a lot of the bait Roman lays out for a playful fight. Patton definitely notices though, and the conversation that leads to is awkward at best, mortifying at worse.

And no, he doesn’t really feel like recounting that event in his memories.

It’s two days before his birthday when his brother and Roman’s brother trap him in Dee’s room with them to confront him.

“You know, you could’ve just asked to talk to me in private instead of hooking your arms around mine to drag me in here,” Virgil comments after flopping on his back on the carpeted floor beneath him. Dee and Remus had both taken advantage of their heights, and Virgil hadn’t really been able to keep his feet under him so when they let him go he’d fallen on his ass and who was he to pass up the opportunity to lay down?

“Yes, but that wasn’t nearly as much fun as dragging you in here like we were going to torture you for information!”

Virgil huffs a breath of air, trying to get his bangs out of his eyes enough so he could give Remus a curious look.

“Okay, and why are you torturing me for information?”

Dee cuts in, then. “Because you’re so open with us, Virgil.”

Virgil narrows his eyes in a glare at his older brother.

“You’re point, Monty the Python?”

Dee rolls his eyes at the nickname, crossing his arms.

“Our point, V-Section, is that you’re acting weird around my brother and he may not have noticed but we have,” Remus butts in with an irritated huff.

Virgil blinks, staring at his brother’s best friend for a solid thirty seconds before he speaks up.

“Was that… Did you just call me a C-Section but with the first letter of my name?” he asks, utterly bewildered. Usually Remus was a lot gorier or NSFW with his nicknames for others, and he didn’t usually relate their name back to it like Roman did.

“Did you really just totally ignore everything Remus said after that?” Dee asked, exasperated with the thing Virgil chose to focus on rather than the important part.

Virgil shrugged, shifting his feet so his knees were in the air and bringing his hands to rest on his stomach.

“I mean, yeah? It’s not like I’m really trying to keep my actions a secret, guys. Honestly, I’m surprised you didn’t say anything sooner? It’s been, what, two months since I actually started flirting with him?”

Dee blinks in surprise at Virgil’s admission.

“...That’s it? You’re not going to fight us on this?” he asks, skeptical of how easy Virgil was taking this. He was quite literally taking it lying down.

“Yeah? Why would I fight you on this?” Virgil asked, raising his torso up on his elbows to better stare at them in confusion.

Genuine confusion.

Jesus Christ.

“Probably because when you dated Chris and he criticized literally everything you did and liked you broke down after he dumped you and told everyone you wouldn’t let yourself interact with romance again?” Remus said, confused by Virgil’s confusion.

“Ah. That. Well, it’s whatever. In the past, literally years ago at this point. Why should I let it bother me now?”

“Who are you and what have you done with my brother?” Was Dee’s immediate response, panic that was almost genuine ringing clear through his words.

Sighing, Virgil flopped back onto the ground, ignoring the slight burning on his elbows from sliding them against the carpet. He stared at the ceiling for a moment, arms spread wide and knees knocking together as he thought (he’d been doing so much thinking lately).

“I know, not exactly something you’d expect me to say, as someone with generalized and social anxiety disorders. But… I don’t like Roman, the way I liked Chris. With Chris, things were fast but they felt kind of forced after a while. I mean yeah, it was fun making fun of people with him, but he didn’t exactly stop at other people, or even me. He criticized himself, and I felt a kinship in that, I guess. I felt like he’d relate to me on my worse nights. I dated him more because I thought he’d understand the feelings because he went through them too.”

Remus and Dee looked at each other as Virgil trailed off, obviously lost in thought. They let the silence go for a minute before Remus got impatient.

“Okay, then how is my brother different than Crucifixion?” he asked, impulsively grabbing one of Dee’s hands to play with his fingers see how long he could squeeze them together before he pulled his hand away.

Virgil still didn’t look at them, instead choosing to smile softly at the ceiling and wow, if that wasn’t a strange look to see on his brother.

“With Roman it’s like… it’s like coming home after a long day of bullshit. It’s a huge relief, I get to unwind from my stress by focusing on something else that I enjoy exponentially more than talking to other people. Instead of overly stressing about how someone reacted to this action, or what to say next to avoid pissing people off, I get to focus on just being in the moment and enjoying myself. It just… feels like home, loving him.”

“Well, slap my ass and call my Lucifer, cause hell must have just frozen over,” Remus says, making Virgil freeze as what he just said sinks in.

“Well. Guess that answers that question, then,” Dee comments, finally pulling his hand away when Remus scrunches his hand in a way that shoots pain through the back of it, making Remus grin at him.

Virgil makes a noise, but Dee can’t really identify what it is, now that Virgil has covered his face with his hands. Granted, that really does nothing to obscure the way his neck and ears have turned red, and if Dee guessed, his face was probably just as bad.

“Remus, I think we should let Virgil stew in his words by himself now.”

Remus perks at that. “Oh! Can we go to the creek? I think I saw a dead squirrel there yesterday and I wanna see how much it’s decomposed.”

Dee sighed, but nodded, turning away from his brother as his best friend bounded out of the room in excitement.

Virgil let out a groan as he listened to Dee and Remus leave, noting the lack of the door clicking shut. Guess it was left open then, probably to urge Virgil out of Dee’s room faster.

Well… he may as well accept that he just admitted Out Loud to his brother and friend that he was in love with Roman. Not like it was information he didn’t already know, he just… hadn’t really anticipated telling them it was something beyond a stupid crush.

With a heavy sigh, Virgil uncovered his face and made quick work of getting himself off the floor so he could actually go chill out in his room like he’d been planning to do before he was ambushed outside of the bathroom.

Honestly, Virgil really shouldn’t have expected Dee and Remus leaving him alone after his admission would mean they would just leave him alone about the topic altogether. Especially now that it was his birthday, and Roman was coming over in five minutes and Remus was giving him a wide unsettling grin.

Usually, that wouldn’t mean anything. Except it was paired with Dee’s self-satisfied smirk as he swung his keys around his finger to entertain himself while he waited.

Virgil glared at the two of them from his spot on the kitchen counter (he’s gay and has anxiety, you couldn’t pay him to sit properly on a chair. Or in a chair regardless).

“What are you two up to? I swear to God, if it’s a surprise party, I will skin you both,” Virgil hisses.

Remus goes to respond, fully prepared to get into a competition with Virgil on who can come up with more creative threats, but Roman bursts in at that exact second, and Virgil slinks off the counter to go meet him at the door, shooting Dee another harsh glare over his shoulder.

“I’m here, Charlotte’s Web!”

Virgil couldn’t help the small smile that formed at the classic nickname, shaking his head as he stopped in the doorway leading in and out of the kitchen.

“Hey, Caesar Salad,” Virgil greeted, shoving his hands in his hoodie pocket and forcing his smile into a more lopsided smirk as Roman looked up at him.

Roman paused for a second, staring at Virgil like he’d just seen something he hadn’t before, making Virgil quirk a brow in question. Instead of an explanation, Roman just cleared his throat and finished maneuvering a large brown paper bag through the gap between his leg and the doorframe.

“Whatcha got there?” he asked, stepping forward to help Roman out by grabbing the thing he wasn’t struggling with--his jacket.

Roman glared at Virgil, who only smirked in response before huffing as he managed to get the bag through without ripping it.

“You’re birthday present if you must know, Gerard Gay.”

Roman was rewarded with a snort as Virgil turned back into the kitchen, gesturing for Roman to follow with a wave of his hand.

Entering the kitchen, Roman let out a long groan.

“Remus, what are you and Rumplesnakeskin doing here?”

“I live here, Roman,” Dee responded before Remus could, rolling his eyes.

“Yes, but you’re never here when I’m here, and if you are, you always make a quick getaway. You’re up to something, Jafaar, and I don’t like it.”

Virgil couldn’t help but agree with Roman, going back to glaring at the two as he hopped back up on the counter to get comfortable.

“Plus, you both have been giving me your evil plotting smiles all morning.”

Roman shuttered. “Oh yeah, something’s definitely up. Spit it out Dr. Gloom and William Snakespere. What foul deeds are you planning today?”

Remus snorts at that, pulling a recorder out of his pocket. One of those old handheld ones you see in movies when the main character needs proof of something that was said. Something he must have gotten from Logan.

Something he probably had two days ago.

Virgil froze, eyes zeroing in on the recorder. The next thing he knew, he was launching himself off the counter in Remus’ direction, reaching for the device in hopes of either grabbing it or making Remus drop it so it’d break on the ground.

Neither of those things happened, considering Remus seemed to anticipate Virgil’s reaction as he gave a gleeful squeal, leaping onto the table and holding the recorder high above his head, out of Virgil’s reach.

Virgil had no qualms getting on the table, but before he could, Dee stopped him.

“Virgil, that table can only handle so much weight, do you really want to incur both of our moms’ wrath by breaking the table when we’re only visiting?”

Roman watched as Virgil was clearly panicking at the fact that Remus had a recorder in his hand, gaze switching between Remus and Dee and Virgil as he tried to figure out what was going on.

“I don’t know what’s going on here, other than the fact you guys have recorded something Virgil clearly doesn’t want me to hear, but I’d honestly really rather you didn’t force him into sharing something he’s not ready to share yet,” Roman said, crossing his arms after dropping the bag on the floor.

Remus let out a loud whine at that. “C’mon, Roman! I thought you’d be curious to know what we’ve found out.”

Roman shrugged at that, looking to Virgil, who was currently staring at him with wide eyes. He met the look with a small smile.

“Yeah, of course I’m curious. You guys know I hate being left out of the loop, but Virgil doesn’t want me to know right now. That doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll never want me to know. And even if it does, I’ll respect that. My curiosity is not an excuse to betray his trust like that.”

“I love you.”

Roman blinked in shock at the words that suddenly left Virgil’s mouth, and if the surprise on Virgil’s face was anything to go by, Virgil hadn’t expected to say them either.

Silence filled the kitchen for a few minutes before Remus let out a resigned sigh.

“Well that just took all the fun out of this. Dee let’s go to the park so I can scare some kids.”

Dee shook his head at his best friend as he hopped off the table.

“We’re not scaring children again, Rem. The last time we nearly got kicked out of the park for good, and I know that one is your favorite for corpse hunting.”

Dee’s words trailed off until the door closed behind the two friends as Roman and Virgil continued to stare at each other.

“...I love you too.”

Virgil’s face immediately lit on fire, and he let out an embarrassed sound, but didn’t move from his spot leaning against the table, knee halfway on top of it from when Dee had stopped him.

Roman couldn’t help but laugh, shaking his head.

“Was that what Remus wanted me to hear?” he asked, shifting to sit on a counter (a habit he gained from Virgil, though he was more prone to sitting in actual chairs, he sat on whatever surface was closest to him).

Virgil finally shifted his leg off the table, clearing his throat as he collapsed onto the floor, legs spread out before him while he leaned back on his hands.

“...Yeah. Yeah it was. Though the recording probably had a lot more embarrassing stuff on it, I doubt they only recorded the last bit of that conversation.”

Roman nodded, tapping his fingers against the hard surface of the counter.

“To be completely honest, I had my suspicions when you started flirting back? But I didn’t really want to say anything in case you stopped, or I was wrong.”

Virgil groaned, letting his head fall back so he could stare at the ceiling.

“Yeah, that started like a week after I figured it out. Remember when you called me mushy and gooey and I threatened your weak life form?”

Roman snorted. “Yeah, I remember. And excuse you, you’re the one with a weak life form Virgil.”

Virgil squinted at Roman then. “Roman. You’re allergic to cats. And chili peppers.”

“You’re lactose intolerant!” Roman protested, earning a smirk.

“Yeah? Do you see me avoiding dairy, Roman? I have chugged an entire gallon of milk, Princey. You really think something as stupid as milk inolerance is going to stop me?”

The bickering continued, them not really acknowledging their feelings beyond the initial declarations of love.

Which was fine with Virgil. They didn’t need to label anything just yet, and it’s not like Virgil was really into physical affection beyond cuddling anyway, so nothing really would change between them, label or not.

And if they held hands more often, or teased each other with pet names they didn’t dare do before, then that was really nobody’s business, was it?

[lemonpeter]

I’d love a spider shield college au with Peter attending his first ever frat party and running into frat boy Steve. Steve doesn’t make a good first impression, and struggles to get Peter’s attention for the rest of the night

So I went slightly away from the prompt but my brain really just ran with this, so I hope it’s still good 💕 I had so much fun with it

1.2K words seriously what happened

Warnings: alcohol mention, party setting, I don’t really know what else to put

———————

It was a terrible idea.

Peter didn’t know why he agreed to go in the first place. He wasn’t really into the party scene. It wasn’t his thing. Crowds stressed him out, alcohol made him sick, and having random guys come onto him pissed him off.

So why was he at a frat party in the first place?

Ha. Well...

It all started because of his photography class.

He loved photography. It seemed that he had a natural eye for such things, and even with the fairly cheap camera that he used, he was able to capture beautiful pieces.

These pieces caught the eye of all kinds of people around campus. Including one Steve Rogers.

The guy was a jock, attending school on a baseball scholarship. He lived on Greek row (because of course he did). He only seemed to live for parties and being the only openly gay player on the team. Absolutely not Peter’s type.

Except...he was an artist too. He didn’t let people see, he wanted to keep up a certain reputation. But he was an artist all the same. And if the grainy pictures he had shown Peter were any indicator, he was actually really good.

But he heard about Peter’s pictures. And wanted to know if he could help him put together a portfolio. And he would pay him pretty well.

The only condition was that Peter had to attend his god awful party first. They would do the pictures afterwards. And it was offered that he could stay the night if it went too late.

Peter hadn’t even seen the asshole himself the entire night. He had seen various other guys from the house, all wasted out of their minds and making fools of themselves. But no Steve.

Until Peter felt strong arms around his waist and a hot breath against his ear. “Hey, you actually came.”

The younger man jumped, harshly elbowing Steve in the stomach and pulling away. “Do not touch me.” He crossed his arms, glaring at the blonde.

Steve groaned, one hand pressing the spot Peter had jabbed with his elbow. “Jeez, I thought we were here to have some fun, babydoll.”

Peter scoffed, nose wrinkled. “Don’t call me that. And I’m only here because I was promised a job and good payment. But I’m getting ready to just leave because this-“ he gestured around the room and then to Steve himself. “Is not my thing. At. All. I don’t care how well you can pay.”

“Cmon, don’t be like that. Have a drink, we can have some fun.” He glanced around the room nervously as Peter mentioned a job. He couldn’t have anyone know about his art stuff.

Uncrossing his arms and putting his hands on his hips, Peter stared him down. “I’m going to go sit outside and wait for you to come get me when you’re ready for me to do the pictures. If you’re even conscious enough by the end of the night to still want to do them.”

With that he stormed off, heading for the front door.

Steve watched him go, brushing a hand through his hair. He wasn’t quite sure where he went wrong.

Peter had come. So he would assume that the other man understood that Steve liked him. And he thought that he would be with him all night.

But he was left in the kitchen. And Peter was out front on the lawn.

Maybe he shouldn’t have assumed that Peter would want to be at the party.

So he went out to go to him, but got stopped by Tony. Then of course they had to do a couple of shots.

Then, when the world stopped spinning, he started making his way to the front door again. Only to be stopped by Bucky, who was crying over a popsicle for whatever reason. He comforted his friend (no matter how odd the circumstance), and then finally got the front door.

And there was Peter. But he wasn’t alone like Steve expected him to be.

He was joined by one of Steve’s best friends, Natasha.

Steve huffed. Was this what betrayal felt like? Natasha knew that Steve had invited him over as a sort of date.

Or he thought that she did.

He walked to them, only stumbling slightly (there was an uneven step, it wasn’t his fault.)

They were laughing at something that Steve couldn’t hear, and he saw red as Natasha leaned in closer and brushed a curled lock behind Peter’s ear.

“Hey, Petey,” he called, despite being too close to them for that volume to be necessary.

Peter winced, pressing a hand to his ear. “Thanks. What do you want?” He asked, sounding vaguely irritated as he stared up at the blonde man.

Natasha snickered, standing up from the ground and brushing herself off. “I’ll talk to you later, Pete. It was nice meeting you.”

Peter waved before lazily looking at Steve again. “What? No one has left, I’m pretty sure it isn’t time for pictures. And I’m not going back inside. I’ve had a nice time out here.”

“It’s only been a couple of minutes, I doubt-“

The brunet man looked at him, shaking his head. “I’ve been out here an hour or so. Although I’m not shocked you didn’t realize that. It’s not like you were looking.” He stood up, glancing down the street. “I think I’m gonna go home. We can reschedule the shoot if you want. Or not. I don’t care.”

“But...we didn’t even spend any time together,” Steve said weakly, watching him.

Peter made a face, looking at him. “That wasn’t the point of this. I’m only here because you said we would do the shoot after the party and you didn’t know when it would end.”

Steve pouted slightly, lip poking out. “But...I invited you so that we could be together tonight. I looked for you for a while and couldn’t find you. And then I did find you and you left.”

“Because you were being weird! Cuddling up to me, calling me pet names, that’s not something I do. You are not my boyfriend, you don’t get to do that.”

“But don’t people do that on dates?”

“I mean, I guess, but this is not-“ Peter paused. “No. You’re not telling me that you thought-“

Steve stared at him, blinking. “I mean, I invited you here. I told you that you could stay the night. And I told you that it was a date.”

Peter groaned, covering his quickly reddening cheeks. “I thought you just meant the expression. Like, when you plan something? ‘It’s a date’? I didn’t think...” he laughed a little. “Shit. I feel stupid.”

Steve watched him. “We’ve still got some time,” he offered. “Unless you totally don’t want this to be a date. We can just to the pictures if you want. And I can get someone to drive you home.”

Peter uncovered his face, sighing softly. “This is not a date.” He held up a hand at the whine that left Steve. “Only because no one would ever consider this a date. Take me to dinner tomorrow night and we can call it a date. Not this.”

Steve beamed, looking a bit like a golden retriever with the goofy smile that he gave Peter.

The younger man laughed, shaking his head. “God, this has been a disaster.”

[abigailnussbaum]

The Boys 5x06, “The Bloody Doors Off”

I’m generally quite positive about this episode, but before I get to that, this really needs to be said: the trope of “doors open at the asylum, murder and mayhem ensue” is really poisonous to the mentally ill, and should have been discarded a long time ago. It’s particularly common in superhero stories, which are, after all, very fond of the setting of a superhero asylum. Off the top of my head, both The Gifted and Batwoman have employed it in the last two years. Which means that even as it’s patting itself on the back for skewering the tropes of superhero stories, The Boys is indulging in a particularly vile one. And while we’re on the subject of things this episode should have been above: that joke about transgender strippers. It’s not as bad as it could have been, because the gag isn’t “she’s got a penis!” (and MM’s response is immediately “I don’t care for strippers regardless of their genitalia”). But it’s still fetishizing the trans body - which, I suppose, is hardly surprising given the show’s generally judgmental attitude towards kink.

That being said, this is probably the best episode of the season, largely because it plays to the show’s strengths: tight thematic and plot coherence (finally justifying the decision to move the show to a weekly format after weeks of shapeless installments), strong characterization, and a willingness to complicate seemingly black and white situations that belies the show’s reputation as an outrage machine. So yes, this is an episode that features Homelander crushing a man’s skull while in the throes of passion (apparently we need to have at least one of those per season), not to mention a man with a giant, prehensile penis. But it’s also an episode that deepens our understanding of Frenchie, introduces us to a new character who is almost instantly compelling (while also complicating that reaction significantly), and forces us to reexamine our feelings towards Maeve without telling us anything new about her.

The common theme running through the episode is the things you’ll do for the people you love, how you live with the consequences of those choices, and what they make of you. We finally get to meet Lamplighter, the boogeyman whose murder of Mallory’s grandchildren broke the Boys apart years ago and has hung over Frenchie in particular. And we find out why that is - Frenchie was supposed to be keeping an eye on Lamplighter, whom Mallory had just recruited to her investigation of Homelander, and left his post to tend to a friend who was ODing.

Shawn Ashmore is inspired casting for Lamplighter. He’s got the sort of look that can just as easily convey sympathetic concern as selfish entitlement, and slide between the two with ease. Which makes Lamplighter both less hatable than we might have expected, given what we know of him, but also hard to trust. (To be fair, I’m reading a lot of Johnny Jaqobis into the performance, and that was Aaron, not Shawn; but honestly, those two are surprisingly similar for how solid both of their careers have turned out.) But the episode really belongs to Frenchie, who not only takes on Lamplighter’s admission that he didn’t know Mallory’s grandchildren were in the room he set on fire, but finds enough common ground with the man to confess his own part in that night’s disaster. When Lamplighter asks “did [your friend] live?”, it’s a moment of human connection that we don’t often see between the Boys and their quarry (and leads to Frenchie’s heartbreaking revelation that Jay lived, only to die of another overdose shortly after). The episode ends with Frenchie begging for Lamplighter’s life from Mallory (and also trying to make peace with Kimiko, who is otherwise sorely underused).

At the same time, the episode doesn’t encourage us to feel uncomplicated sympathy towards Lamplighter. As MM points out “I meant to murder an innocent woman, not her grandchildren” is hardly a defense. And even more disturbing is Lamplighter’s repeated refrain to Frenchie, “why didn’t you stop me?” Whereas Frenchie doesn’t want to be let off the hook even though he had a good reason for abandoning his assignment, Lamplighter is looking for someone else to blame for his own actions, even to the perverse extreme of blaming an opponent for not fighting back. And, as we see in the present, he’s still killing innocents, burning experiment subjects who don’t pan out or refuse to play along, while claiming that he’s being forced.

Which ties into Maeve, who for the first time is called to account for her part in the plane crash last season. Maeve sees the video of the crash as indicting Homelander, which is also how we’ve been trained to think about it. But when Elena watches it, she sees a woman she’s been taught to think of as heroic abandoning others to save her own life, begging fruitlessly for mercy but finally just saving her own skin. Like Lamplighter - and more importantly, like Annie earlier in this season, when she was about to kill Hughie at Homelander’s command - Maeve might reasonably say that she didn’t have a choice. But she still did those things, and hid them. Her final line to Elena - “why are you looking at me that way?” - sums up the episode’s core message.

It’s a message that is also echoed in the Annie-Billy-Hughie storyline, though it’s a bit more wobbly in that context. The idea of having Annie and Billy bond over their shared love of Hughie is a solid storytelling beat, but I’m not quite sure what to make of Annie’s “he’s too good for either of us”. Annie kills the driver to save Hughie, and the show doesn’t let her off the hook for that (her long look at the baby seat in the car once she gets in). But it’s still a choice she made in order to save someone. Hughie killed Translucent for no reason at all - or really, because he wanted to feel strong and powerful after weeks of stewing in grief and rage over Robin’s death (and Annie, though she knows the Boys were responsible for Translucent’s death, still doesn’t know that Hughie is the one who pushed the button). I’m not sure he’s too good for anyone. 

(Meanwhile, the fact that Annie was on the verge of killing Hughie to save her own life just a few episode ago seems to have been memory-holed, even though it would have been a really obvious thing for Billy to throw in her face during their fight early in the episode.)

The other big thing that happens in this episode is that we find out Stormfront’s background, and between what she says to Homelander and what Lamplighter reveals to the Boys, it seems clear that her plan is to create a superpowered neo-Nazi army and use it to take over the world. It’s good to finally have some answers (and I admit that this is a more interesting turn of plot than the one I anticipated last week, a false flag terrorist attack). But I also feel that the show is in danger of outthinking itself. Having Vought be a company with roots in Nazi Germany was a clever touch earlier this season, but making Stormfront a German Nazi herself - and making the entire genesis of superheroes a Nazi project - undercuts a lot of what the show has been saying about American racism and how much its superheroes are rooted in it. Suddenly we’re back to that familiar trope, invasion by an army of foreign and foreign-inspired Nazis. It’s not unlike the way that Winter Soldier whiffed its central revelation, choosing to focus on a fifth column of hidden traitors instead of admitting the more terrifying truth, that after seventy years there’s really no way to disentangle “good” SHIELD from “evil” Hydra, because the former has been hopelessly corrupted by the latter.

When I wrote about last week’s episode, I praised it for skewering rainbow capitalism in its depiction of Vought’s plans to “sell” Maeve’s queerness and her relationship with Elena. Since then, several people have pointed out that The Boys was speeding well ahead of the actual industry it’s lampooning - in a blockbuster market dominated by superhero movies, there are currently no queer superhero characters (though there are several on TV). Which means that the show’s satire can end up missing its mark - instead of pointing out how capitalism squeezes everything good into an easily-digested, marketable form, one can easily read this subplot as saying that a gay superhero would be bad, full stop. 

I think a similar dynamic is at play when it comes to Stormfront’s secret plot. An army of superpowered neo-Nazis is scary, but is it really scarier than the President of the United States not only refusing to condemn white supremacists on stage at a national debate, but addressing them directly in terms that can only be taken as an instruction to riot if he loses the election? Is it scarier than videos of police that repeatedly show their sympathy towards white supremacist, to the point of standing by when one of them fires into a crowd of people? It doesn’t take superpowers for fascism to take hold - it didn’t in Nazi Germany, and it doesn’t today. By pretending otherwise, The Boys is neutering its social commentary exactly where it should be most trenchant.

[coeurdastronaute]

Essays in Existentialism: Nerd 11

Previously on Nerd

There weren’t any nerves because of the dance. Lexa had been forced to go to dances by her sister in an effort to make her feel included, and then with friends from various teams who all seemed to have similar goals. It was just a dance that would last a few hours and then she’d be done and that was okay. After going to about a dozen already in her life, Lexa couldn’t spend too much time allowing herself to be nervous. 

The nerves came because Clarke promptly informed her that her parents were at a conference for the week, and she should come over after the dance. That was a very good invitation. It was probably the best invitation and Lexa knew what it meant. And she wasn’t sure about it. But she was also afraid of lying to her parents. Because she couldn’t rightly tell them she was going over her girlfriend’s house for the night, no matter how supportive they were with their new “gay daughter” parenting books and Pride-colored paraphernalia. 

The nerves came because she had a girlfriend and was going to a dance with her. They came because she was somehow dating the head cheerleader, and she fell into meeting her and what if it went badly? What if she went over to Clarke’s place and forgot how to kiss? Or breathe? Or stand? Because all seemed likely with the fact that her brain short circuited when she saw her girlfriend in her cheerleading uniform. Surely seeing her in anything less than fully-clothed would lead to disaster. 

Lexa took a deep breath and stared at herself in her mirror before adjusting her hair and then her sleeve. She was afraid to call her sister. She didn’t want anyone to know. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to know, just that she really wanted to go over Clarke’s place and not go to the dance at all. But she didn’t know how to go to Clarke’s, in the euphemistic sense. Despite all of the research that just seemed to cloud her brain even further, the idea of sex was intriguing and scary, but not altogether frightening. 

“Well, golly, aren’t you a real dreamboat?” 

Despite herself and the worry that crept in just a few seconds before, Lexa blushed and smiled before pushing herself away from the mirror, grabbing her leather jacket a second later. The conversation she had with her reflection shed no light on her predicament. 

“Are you sure this isn’t stupid?” 

“I’m very sure,” Clarke promised, leaning against the doorway. “You are a very dreamy date and I’m so glad you offered to take little ol’ me to the Hop.” 

“Are you going to talk like this all night?” Lexa cocked her head as she slid on her jacket, careful to not mess up the slicked hair and pristine white shirt. 

“Sure am, Daddy-o.” 

“You look adorable, by the way,” she offered when she reached the door and her date didn’t move, just smiled. 

Hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, Clarke’s dress was out of an episode of Happy Days or something, poodle skirt in place and all. She looked like she was made to be an advertisement for apple pie and the American way circa 1957. It was in that moment that Lexa realized she was dating someone who liked going full into whatever they were going to do. This wasn’t a put together costume— this was precise. 

“Thanks. I wanted to make sure a cool cat like you had a primo date.” 

“This is a lot more comfortable than prom will be.” 

“If I get to go. No one has asked me yet,” Clarke teased.

“I’m sure someone will,” Lexa promised, kissing her finally as she reached the door, eager to have that feeling again. 

“That’s true. I’m a cheerleader. I get asked to prom. And I think I’ll say yes to whoever asks me first.” 

“Good plan.”

“Are you going to come over after?” 

Lexa gulped slightly before nodding, afraid to say to many words. That was tough. 

“No funny business, just wanted to hang out with you alone. It’s been a while since we’ve hung out.” 

“True,” she nodded, smiling as Clarke adjusted the lapels of her jacket.  “But maybe a little funny business.” 

There it was. Clarke smiled a little and then it grew into a lot, spreading wide on her cheeks as she kissed the corner of Lexa’s mouth. It burnt the entirety of her girlfriend’s neck and tips of her ears. Lexa felt like she could breathe because Clarke dispelled her fear with such an off-handed joke, that she tried to remember to be bummed about not having sex. She’d put so much effort into figuring out how she felt about it, it seemed like a waste. 

“Hurry up, Lex!” her mother called from down the stairs. “I can’t wait to see how cute you two are!” 

“Thanks for being around,” Clarke offered before letting go of her girlfriend. “I think this is the happiest I’ve been in a long time.” 

“Thanks for letting me touch your boobs. That’s been one of the best things to ever happen to me in my entire life.” 

“Now that’s a compliment.” 

“Yours too,” Lexa smiled before putting her arm over Clarke’s shoulders as they made their way down the stairs to the waiting parents. 

“Oh my! Lexa you look so cute! And Clarke, you are a dream!” 

“I’m not cute, I’m tough,” Lexa explained. 

“I think that’s one of those things that if you say it, it’s not true,” her father offered. “But that jacket does look very cool on you. Grandpa would be absolutely thrilled to have a gay granddaughter greaser.” 

His wife hit his chest as Lexa shook her head and laughed. 

“Alright. I think we’re ready to leave.” 

“Wait wait,” her mother bustled about. “I need some pictures.” 

Lexa groaned despite her girlfriend’s arms wrapping around her waist, always ready for a picture. Somehow, Lexa had pictures of her and Clarke on her phone. She saw pictures of herself on her date’s Instagram. She had a strip of pictures from the photobooth in the winter festival downtown taped beside one of her monitors in her room. Clarke documented and Lexa stopped fighting it. She was someone who wanted to remember now. 

“Mom, we don’t—”

“Just smile. Clarke is humoring me.” 

“Clarke humors everyone.” 

“And that’s why she’s my favorite partner you’ve brought home,” she muttered as she snapped a few pictures. “There. That wasn’t so bad. Was it?” 

“It’s part of the routine,” Clarke reminded her girlfriend. “You just have to let it happen.” 

“I don’t have to like it.” 

“Lexa never did like pictures,” her father explained, looking at a few he took himself on his own phone. “She covered her face in her picture with Santa when she was four.” 

“I’d love to see that,” the cheerleader decided. 

“Nope, it’s gone. Burned. Lost to time and space,” Lexa shook her head, staunchly refusing. She ushered her date toward the door. “Have a good night. Thanks for the jacket. I’ll see you both tomorrow night.” 

“Be home for dinner please!” 

“I will.” 

“Make sure you tell Luna we said—”

The front door shut and Lexa paused before letting out the deep breath she’d been holding in her chest. She still had her arm over Clarke’s shoulder, and she felt the slight chill in the March air, but she didn’t move. 

“That was embarrassing. I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t. Your parents are truly some of the coolest people I’ve ever met.” 

“They’re not.” 

“I know you don’t believe that,” Clarke chastised as she opened the passenger side door for her date. “You love them and the attention they give you and the love and support.” 

“Sometimes it’s overwhelming.” 

“Better than underwhelming.” 

“They really like you,” Lexa offered as she put on her seatbelt and the truck roared to life. 

“I bet that’d stop if they knew you were coming over tonight,” she grinned, almost proud to be doing something she shouldn’t. “Or that you propositioned me for a little funny business.” 

All of her blood rushed to her cheek and Lexa felt her brain go through a billion options for what to say next. The real flaw of her innate design being that she then tried to say all billion options at one time and it just left her gaping. 

“But I’d win them back by promising to have nothing but pure intentions with their baby girl.” 

“That’d save me from another safe sex talk.”

Clarke chuckled as she flipped from reverse back to drive and pointed them toward the school gym. 

“Nothing but necking and malts for Lexa Woods. I have a reputation to uphold,” Clarke reminded her as she pressed play so that a feisty little bop started playing on the radio, perfectly in line with the theme of the night. 

Amazed, Lexa looked at the tape deck and then at the girl driving who did a stupid dance to an outrageously peppy song by the Ronettes because Clarke made a soundtrack and it was a movie except it was real, and that was all that mattered. 

Clarke sang along, nudging her girlfriend until she hummed along as well. 

XXXXXXXXXX

“So you admit, it was fun.” 

“It was the most fun I’ve ever had at a dance,” Lexa finally acquiesced as she slid off hr coat and hung it on the banister. 

“I will take all the credit then,” Clarke decided as she kicked off her shoes and made her way down the hall, flipping on lights as she went. “I’m clearly an amazing date to these types of things. I should hire myself out.” 

For a few minutes, Clarke kept going on about the dance, but Lexa was somewhat distracted. She heard her voice, tossed down the hall as she approached, filled with a kind of happiness that was contagious. But Lexa found herself looking around the house that she’d only been in once before, now fully able to enjoy it without fear of running into Clarke’s parents. She wasn’t sure if it was her that was nervous to meet them, or Clarke’s possible fear. 

But now, she gazed at a few pictures on the wall before moving into the modern living room. She always thought her parents were sparse, disinterested decorators, but Clarke’s place took the cake. It was spartan, but on purpose, which Lexa never really understood. Maybe it was the lack of people, maybe it was the night, maybe it was what she already knew, but it didn’t feel as warm as her house, there were no signs of life, and Lexa furrowed as she touched the back of the couch. 

“My mom re-did the whole place,” Clarke interrupted Lexa’s perusal, leaning against the wall closer to the dining room. “It’s for when my dad needs a wheelchair. He can get around better.”

“I wasn’t—”

“It’s not quite right, right?” 

As much as she wanted to lie, Lexa didn’t have it in her. Instead she just shrugged and tried to find something. 

“It’s a beautiful room. It reminds me of something you’d see in a movie. Perfect, you know?” 

“Maybe that’s why I’m so obsessed with making a mess,” Clarke suggested, earning a smile as Lexa approached her slowly, still looking around. “My mom gets so mad, but I leave clothes all over the place, homework, books, trash, cups, just so it seems like we live here.” 

“Maybe you’re just a troublemaker.” 

Pulled back from too much thinking, Clarke snorted but smiled at the accusation. There was a little of that to it all, too, but no one had to know that part. 

“Want to shower? I can grab some snacks.” 

Lexa nodded, disliking the feeling of sweat and hair gel and make up and all of it on her skin, terrified to have to sleep in it. But she didn’t move. Just stood in front of the girl who tentatively reached out her hands and snaked a finger through her belt loops, tugging forward. 

Pressed against Clarke, Lexa anchored her hands on Clarke’s ribs and smiled, eyes darting toward her lips. 

“Can I, uh,” Lexa furrowed, her brain eventually overcoming the haze that happened when she was near Clarke, her brain finally thinking for itself despite how disorienting it was. “I really would like to— There’s... “ she clenched her jaw and took a deep breath. “Don’t move, okay?” 

Amused by the display, Clarke just nodded and watched Lexa overthink too much. She could never really articulate that this was why she enjoyed Lexa; this brain, this honesty, this feeling that nothing else in the world existed. She was quietly consuming. 

But slowly, Lexa leaned forward, and Clarke held her breath when she felt Lexa’s against her skin. And she gripped her fingers tighter. And she closed her eyes when Lexa kissed her cheek, kissed her jaw, moved to her neck. A hand moved to the other side of her throat and it must have felt Clarke gulp as warm lips softly kissed her pulse. Even though her eyes were knit tight, they rolled back at the feeling, taking a few extra seconds to realize it wasn’t happening anymore. 

“Fuck,” she whispered. 

“I, um, I like that. Uh, the. Um,” Lexa nodded slightly, bashful. “I like kissing your neck. I thought about that a lot tonight. You look very pretty.” 

As she said it, eyes roved over Clarke’s face, moved to her own hand that was cupping her neck, and Lexa smiled as her thumb moved along jaw bone. And when Clarke opened her eyes, she smiled involuntarily and pushed hair from her face. 

“That’s a fairly good place to start some funny business. And you should definitely give me a minute.” 

Lexa furrowed and watched the blood rush to Clarke’s cheeks. She could almost feel the burn beneath her fingertips. 

“I’m sorr—” 

A hand went over her mouth as Clarke shook her head and smiled, taking a shaky breath as she got her wits back. 

“I want you to feel comfortable doing whatever you want,” she promised. “And fuck if I didn’t love that. You don’t have to be afraid of me, or messing up, or… I don’t know. You’re allowed to kiss me, however you want.” 

“Like right now or in general?” 

Clarke chuckled and shook her head, letting it flop back against the wall with a thud as she rolled her eyes. She knew the look Lexa had on her face, perplexed and unsure, and she knew the furrow would be there. She knew that all of it would make her hear feel warm. 

“My girlfriend doesn’t need to get a permission slip every time she wants to touch me. In fact, I’d prefer a real blanket level of consent that you trust I’ll stop something I don’t like.” 

“Who’s that?” Lexa furrowed. “Oh. Wait. Me?” 

Clarke sighed and moved her hands to hold Lexa’s ears as she wiggled her head slightly, Lexa’s smile finally coming despite her eagerness to stifle it. 

“If you think you’re woman enough for the job.” 

“And I get to kiss your neck like a lot. And you can sit on my lap at parties. And go to dances together. And all of that?”

“Those are some of the basic requirements, yes, but also not limited to listening to me talk during movies,” Clarke explained, earning a bit of a frown, which just further solidified her affections, “Letting me be your pep squad during soccer and track season.”

“With cookies?” 

“With cookies. And definitely kissing me often. Holding my hand sometimes. Letting me give you rides after work. Being someone I talk to about anything. And definitely letting me grab your butt a lot.” 

“Should I be writing this down?” 

Clarke laughed, her hands slipping slightly as she wrapped her arms around Lexa’s shoulders and hugging her tightly. 

“Just keep being the girl who walked into the diner and texted me all night.” 

“I can do that.” 

“Good.” 

Lexa smiled, her heart racing as she hugged her girlfriend back. She said that word in her head a million times in under a second. It flashed quicker than sound. 

XXXXXXXX

“I feel like a whole new girl. Showers are the best invention of all of human history,” Clarke moaned as she walked into the bedroom, toweling at her wet hair. 

“I’m sure the polio vaccine must be up toward the top. Or electricity. People are nuts about sliced bread.” 

“I stand by my pick for the best invention. Yours are boring.” 

Lexa just rolled her eyes and smiled as she readjusted in Clarke’s bed, crossing her legs and snuggling deeper into the pillows as some old movie she didn’t recognize played on the television. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Clarke finish brushing her hair before clicking off a light and making her way around the bed. Her eyes never left the figure as the room was lit only by the black and white screen. 

“Is this okay? I can stay in the spare?” Clarke offered as she lifted the edge of her duvet. 

“No, no this is… yeah. This is great.” 

“Good.” 

With a quick jump, Clarke was beside her, though they were separated with Lexa outside of the cocoon. Lexa smelled Clarke’s soap and her room and it was more than enough. 

“You called me your girlfriend,” Lexa began after a few moments of quiet. 

“I did. I guess I had been in my head for a while.” 

“I never imagined that I’d be someone’s girlfriend. Or… that you’d be mine. Does that mean you’ll stick around?”

“I really want to.” 

“Even when I’m not… even when like, my-- I don’t. Even when I-- when I-- when this happens and I can’t say words right?” Lexa finally blurted. 

“Especially then,” Clarke promised. Lexa nodded. 

“Sometimes it’s like my brain doesn’t work right.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Just that it… It sometimes. I know how I feel, but sometimes I can’t get it out.”

“Yeah. I’ve noticed. But when you get there, it’s fantastic.” 

Lexa blushed slightly at the observation, suddenly confused as to how someone saw her and knew these things. She wanted to know what she looked like to Clarke so badly. She wanted to see the things she liked that she hated about herself. She wanted to know who she was to someone like that. Instead she just sighed and offered a small smile. 

“We joke that my sister got all of the feeling. I like movies because they make people feel things.”

“I don’t think you’re bad at saying things. I think you’re precise, and I think people are impatient. But I’d rather hear what you have to say than most people.” 

Clarke watched as her girlfriend furrowed and stared at the movie, her jaw clenching somewhat, the purposefulness of her thoughts wrestling around her brain and playing across her face. And when she turned to her, in the dim light of the bedroom, the movie flashed across her face dramatically. She very much wanted to know what Lexa saw that made her furrow lessen and her smile grow just the slightest. 

“I really like you,” Lexa confessed.

It was very honest. It was exceedingly honest and pure and Clarke knew it because Lexa put so much weight into it and so much thought, debating it from every side before she confessed. 

“See? You’re great with feelings,” Clarke teased. 

“Nah.” 

“I think I might try a page out of your book.” 

“Oh?” 

Clarke moved only slightly to sit up beside Lexa, moving so she was on her knees. She smiled and pressed her hand against her chest, pinning her there gently. 

“Just. Don’t move, okay?” 

Lexa nodded, almost imperceptibly, as if Clarke’s request started immediately. With a small smile, Clarke moved forward, her lips on Lexa’s  softly at first and then deeper. She was kissing her girlfriend, and she was allowed. 

But Lexa wasn’t good at listening. She pushed forward and held Clarke back, enjoying the feeling of her tongue so much she whimpered. It didn’t matter. Clarke straddled her and the covers got tangled and her hands were on hips. She gripped there tightly. 

When lips moved to her neck, Lexa knew she was a goner. There wasn’t anything better in life. She moaned, unsure of why that was a noise she now made. Clarke just smiled. 

“I don’t want to move too quickly,” Clarke muttered. “But you are insanely hot.” 

“It’s not that warm in here.” 

That was it. Lexa ruined it in two minutes. Clarke pulled back and looked at her with an amused smile. She adjusted her glasses, finally tearing her hands from feeling her girlfriends hips. 

“You really don’t know how absolutely sexy you are, do you?” 

“God, me? No,” Lexa scoffed, blushing slightly at the notion, earning a roll of eyes before Clarke leaned forward again. 

Lips moved to the other side of her neck and Lexa fumbled with words she didn’t need, so she kept quiet. Clarke’s hips moved slightly and Lexa felt her thighs shift, making her woozy. 

“When do you want me to stop?” Clarke whispered, her hand somehow halfway up Lexa’s shirt without her noticing until she felt fingertips near her bra. 

“Fuck. Never.” 

Clarke chuckled and pulled away before earning a needy, heady kiss from the girl beneath her. 

“How far are we going?” Clarke asked, breathless and aching. 

“How far can we go?” 

“How far do you want to go?”

“I… I don’t know. I don’t know what to do. But I want to do something.” 

There was a smile that started on Clarke’s lips despite the honesty Lexa was hopeful was enough. She certainly wasn’t sure what she was allowed to do; she didn’t even know that having a girlfriend meant she had to let her talk through movies, and frankly that part was still concerning and something she wanted to remember to come back to in the near future. 

With a slight shift, Clarke moved so she wasn’t straddling her girlfriend anymore and laid down on the bed beside her, hair drying and making a mess around her. The movie played and didn’t illuminate much, but Lexa saw Clarke start to lift up her shirt, saw her stomach show in the grey of the screen. 

“I didn’t invite you over for funny business,” Clarke promised. “But since we’re here, right?” 

Lexa couldn’t really speak. She just nodded eagerly, her mouth obscenely dry. She wanted water. She wanted to taste Clarke’s hip bones. No sex talk with her parents prepared her for this, and even thinking about their sex talks did nothing to deter her in the slightest. 

“I… I… I don’t know what to do.” 

“What do you want to do?” 

“Can I…?” Lexa shifted, her hand stuttering over Clarke’s at the edge of her shirt. She waited, hovering until she earned a nod. 

Clarke saw the studious face. She saw the hesitation mingling with the dark of the room and the light from the television. She was entranced, oddly vulnerable, and insanely turned on and she wasn’t sure what else was going to happen just that she never trusted anyone as much as Lexa because Lexa looked at her like she was precious and a natural wonder of the world, and no one had a right to look at anyone like that. Never. 

Very slowly, Lexa let her fingertips find Clarke’s skin. She sat up, leaned forward, watched as she touched her in the light of the movie. She moved up along the ridge of ribs there, feeling them buried, feeling them shift and swell as she took a breath. 

With a swallow and a quick look at Clarke, she pushed the shirt a little higher, her breath growing quicker as she did until she stopped. Clarke bit her lip and swallowed what felt like a purr, confused as to why her body did that. But Lexa placed her palm on her rib, ran her thumb along her chest and kissed the other side. 

“Jesus,” Clarke whispered. 

It didn’t seem quite right, that someone could be so tender. She wasn’t fragile, but there was something to be being held like she would break. 

“That’s what you wanted to do?” 

“Yeah,” Lexa smiled, kissing her again, inching the shirt up higher. “One of the things. Thank you for… thanks for going this speed.” 

“What speed is this?” 

“Unsure.” 

Clarke watched Lexa not push her luck. She watched her look at her hand. She felt her kiss her one more time before pulling away and staring back at her, content, as if she was happier than she ever felt she should allow herself to be. 

She held her own hands at her shirt, prepared to take it off. Prepared for much more. But the look on Lexa’s face was perfect, and before she could decide, Lexa shifted and laid down beside her, kissing her neck, kissing her jaw, running her nose along her cheek before kissing the corner of her mouth. 

“You’re going to kill me, Woods.” 

“Shut up and kiss me.” 

“You can’t talk to me like that, I’m your girlfriend.” 

Lexa beamed, even with her eyes closed. Fingertips tickled along Clarke’s ribs and a leg shifted against her hip. 

“I really need you to write me a rule book.”

next

[iwanthermidnightz]

“Not a shot. Not a single chance. Not a snowball’s chance in hell.”

Taylor Swift — who, at 30, has reached a Zen state of cheerful realism — laughs as she leans into a pillow she’s placed over her crossed legs inside her suite at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, leaning further still into her infinitesimal odds of winning a Golden Globe, which will zero out when she heads down to the televised ball in a few hours.

Never mind whether or not the tune she co-wrote, “Beautiful Ghosts,” might actually have been worthy of a trophy for best original song (or shortlisted for an Oscar, which it was not). Since the Globe nominations were revealed, voters could hardly have been immune to how quickly the film it’s a part of, “Cats,” in which she also co-stars, became a whipping boy for jokes about costly Hollywood miscalculations and creative disasters. Not that you’ll hear Swift utter a discouraging word about it all. “I’m happy to be here, happy to be nominated, and I had a really great time working on that weird-ass movie,” she declares. “I’m not gonna retroactively decide that it wasn’t the best experience. I never would have met Andrew Lloyd Webber or gotten to see how he works, and now he’s my buddy. I got to work with the sickest dancers and performers. No complaints.”

If this leads you to believe that the pop superstar is in the business of sugarcoating things, consider her other new movie — a vastly more significant documentary that presents Swift not just sans digital fur but without a whole lot of the varnish of the celebrity-industrial complex. The Netflix-produced “Taylor Swift: Miss Americana” has a prestige slot as the Jan. 23 opening night gala premiere of the Sundance Film Festival before it reaches the world as a day-and-date theatrical release and potential streaming monster on Jan. 31.

The doc spends much of its opening act juxtaposing the joys of creation with the aggravations of global stardom — the grist of many a pop doc, if rendered in especially intimate detail — before taking a more provocative turn in its last reel to focus more tightly on how and why Swift became a political animal. It’s the story of an earnest young woman with a self-described “good girl” fixation working through her last remaining fears of being shamed as she comes to embrace her claws, and her causes.

Given that the film portrays how gradually, and sometimes reluctantly, Swift came to place herself into service as a social commentator, “Miss Americana” is a portrait of the birth of an activist. Director Lana Wilson sets the movie up so that it pivots on a couple of big letdowns for its subject. The first comes early in the film, and early in the morning, when Swift’s publicist calls to update her on how many of the top three Grammy categories her 2017 album “Reputation” is nominated for: zilch. She’s clearly bummed about the record’s brushoff by the awards’ nominating committee, as just about anyone who’d previously won album of the year twice would be, and determinedly tells her rep that she’s just going to make a better record.

But she suffers what feels like a more meaningful blow toward the end of the film. In the fall of 2018, Swift finally comes out of the closet politically to intervene on behalf of Democrats in a midterm election in her home state of Tennessee. As the Washington Post put it, this announcement “fell like a hammer across the Trump-worshipping subforums of the far-right Internet, where people had convinced themselves… that the world-famous pop star was a secret MAGA fan.” Donald Trump goes on camera to smirk that he now likes Swift’s music a little less. The singer is successful in enlisting tens of thousands of young people to register to vote, but her senatorial candidate of choice, Democrat Phil Bredesen, loses to Republican Marsha Blackburn, whom she’d called out as a flagrant enemy of feminism and gay rights.

“Definitely, that was a bigger disappointment for me,” Swift says, pitting the midterm snub against the Grammy snub. “I think what’s going on out in the world is bigger than who gets a prize at the party.”

It was not always thus for Swift — as the detractors who dragged her for staying quiet during the last presidential election eagerly pointed out. If you had to pick the most embarrassing or regrettable moment in “Miss Americana,” it might be the TV clip from “The Late Show With David Letterman” in which the host brings up politics and gets Swift to essentially advocate the “Shut up and sing” mantra. As the studio audience roars approval of her vow to stay apolitical, Letterman gives her what now looks like history’s most dated fist bump.

Thinking back on it, Swift is incredulous. “Every time I didn’t speak up about politics as a young person, I was applauded for it,” she says. “It was wild. I said, ‘I’m a 22-year-old girl — people don’t want to hear what I have to say about politics.’ And people would just be like, ‘Yeahhhhh!’”

At that point, Swift was already starting to record isolated pop tracks, taking baby steps that would soon turn into full strides away from her initial genre. But whether she had designs on switching lanes or not, the lesson of the Dixie Chicks’ forced exile after Natalie Maines’ comment against then-President George W. Bush had branded itself onto her brain at an earlier age, when she’d just planted her young-teen flag in Nashville and overheard a lot of the lamentations of older Music Row songwriters about how the Chicks had thrown it all away.

“I saw how one comment ended such a powerful reign, and it terrified me,” says Swift. “These days, with social media, people can be so mad about something one day and then forget what they were mad about a couple weeks later. That’s fake outrage. But what happened to the Dixie Chicks was real outrage. I registered it — that you’re always one comment away from being done being able to make music.”

Maybe the most transfixing scene in “Miss Americana” is one where Swift argues with her father and other members of her team about the statement she’s about to release coming out against Blackburn and — it’s clear from her references to White House opposition to the Equality Act — Donald Trump too. The comments were so spontaneous that Wilson wasn’t there to film the moment, but the director had asked people to turn on the camera if anything interesting transpired, and here it most certainly did.

“For 12 years, we’ve not got involved in politics or religion,” an unnamed associate says to Swift, suggesting that going down the road of standing against a president as well as Republican gubernatorial and Senate candidates could have the effect of halving her audience on tour. Her father chimes in: “I’ve read the entire [statement] and … right now, I’m terrified. I’m the guy that went out and bought armored cars.”

“I needed to get to a point where I was ready, able and willing to call out bullshit rather than just smiling my way through it.” TAYLOR SWIFT

But Swift is adamant about pressing the button to send a nearly internet-breaking Instagram post, saying that Blackburn has voted against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act as well as LGBTQ-friendly bills: “I can’t see another commercial [with] her disguising these policies behind the words ‘Tennessee Christian values.’ I live in Tennessee. I am Christian. That’s not what we stand for.” Pushing back tears, she laments not having come out against Trump two years earlier, “but I can’t change that. … I need to be on the right side of history. … Dad, I need you to forgive me for doing it, because I’m doing it.”

Says Swift now, “This was a situation where, from a humanity perspective, and from what my moral compass was telling me I needed to do, I knew I was right, and I really didn’t care about repercussions.” She understands why she faced such heated opposition in the room: “My dad is terrified of threats against my safety and my life, and he has to see how many stalkers we deal with on a daily basis, and know that this is his kid. It’s where he comes from.”

Swift was recently announced as the recipient of a Vanguard Award from GLAAD, and she name-checked the org in her basher-bashing single “You Need to Calm Down,” which was released as one of the teaser tracks for last fall’s more outwardly directed and socially conscious “Lover” album. Part of her politicization, she says, is feeling it would be hypocritical to hang out with her gay friends while leaving them to their own devices politically. In the film, she says, “I think it is so frilly and spineless of me to stand onstage and go ‘Happy Pride Month, you guys,’ and then not say this, when someone’s literally coming for their neck.”

A year and a half later, she elaborates: “To celebrate but not advocate felt wrong for me. Using my voice to try to advocate was the only choice to make. Because I’ve talked about equality and sung about it in songs like ‘Welcome to New York,’ but we are at a point where human rights are being violated. When you’re saying that certain people can be kicked out of a restaurant because of who they love or how they identify, and these are actual policies that certain politicians vocally stand behind, and they disguise them as family values, that is sinister. So, so dark.”

Her increasing alignment with the LGBTQ community wasn’t the only thing raising her consciousness to a breaking — i.e., speaking — point. So did the sexual assault trial in which judgment was rendered that she had been groped by a DJ in a backstage photo op (for financial restitution, Swift had asked for $1).

Her experience with the trial was crucial, she says, in finding herself “needing to speak up about beliefs I’d always had, because it felt like an opportunity to shed light on what those trials are like. I experienced it as a person with extreme privilege, so I can only imagine what it’s like when you don’t have that. And I think one theme that ended up emerging in the film is what happens when you are not just a people pleaser but someone who’s always been respectful of authority figures, doing what you were supposed to do, being polite at all costs. I still think it’s important to be polite, but not at all costs,” she says. “Not when you’re being pushed beyond your limits, and not when people are walking all over you. I needed to get to a point where I was ready, able and willing to call out bulls— rather than just smiling my way through it.”

That came into play when Kanye West stepped into her life and publicly shamed her a second time. In the video Kim Kardashian released in 2016, you can hear the people-pleasing Swift on the other end of the line sheepishly thanking him for letting her know about the “Me and Taylor might still have sex” line he plans to include about her in a song — only to regret it later when the eventual track also includes the claim “Why? I made that bitch famous.” The boast, of course, referred back to the moment when he interrupted her and stole her spotlight at the MTV VMAs six years earlier as she was in the middle of an acceptance speech. West’s is not a name that ever publicly escapes Swift’s lips, so it might be surprising to fans that these events are recapped in “Miss Americana,” although Swift says the filmic decisions were all up to the director, who explains that Swift’s reaction to the episode was important to include.

“With the 2009 VMAs, it surprised me that when she talked about how the whole crowd was booing, she thought that they were booing her, and how devastating that was,” says Wilson. “That was something I hadn’t thought about or heard before, and made it much more relatable and understandable to anyone.”

“I see the movie as looking at the flip side of being America’s sweetheart.” LANA WILSON, DIRECTOR OF “TAYLOR SWIFT: MISS AMERICANA”

Swift acknowledges how formative both incidents have been in her life, for ill and good. “As a teenager who had only been in country music, attending my very first pop awards show,” she says now, “somebody stood up and sent me the message: ‘You are not respected here. You shouldn’t be here on this stage.’ That message was received, and it burrowed into my psyche more than anyone knew. … That can push you one of two ways: I could have just curled up and decided I’m never going to one of those events ever again, or it could make me work harder than anyone expects me to, and try things no one expected, and crave that respect — and hopefully one day get it.

“But then when that person who sparked all of those feelings comes back into your life, as he did in 2015, and I felt like I finally got that respect (from West), but then soon realized that for him it was about him creating some revisionist history where he was right all along, and it was correct, right and decent for him to get up and do that to a teenage girl…” She sighs. “I understand why Lana put it in.”

Adds the woman who started her recent “Lover” album with a West-allusive romp that’s pointedly called “I Forgot That You Existed”: “I don’t think too hard about this stuff now.”

What’s not in the film is any mention of her other most famous nemeses — Scooter Braun and Scott Borchetta of Big Machine Records, with whom she’s scrapped publicly for several months. “The Big Machine stuff happened pretty late in our process,” says Wilson. “We weren’t that far from picture lock. But there’s also not much to say that isn’t publicly known. I feel like Taylor’s put the story out there in her own words already, and it’s been widely covered. I was interested in telling the story that hadn’t been told before, that would be surprising and emotionally powerful to audiences whether they were music industry people or not.”

Still, the way Swift has been willing to stand up politically for others parallels the manner in which she stood up for herself in regard to Braun, et al., at the recent Billboard Women in Music Awards, where she gave an altogether blistering speech, naming names and taking no prisoners, going after the men who now control her six-album Big Machine back catalog. Certainly Swift was aware that, along with supporters, there were many friends and business associates of Braun among the VIPs in the Hollywood Palladium who would not be pleased with what this very reformed people-pleaser had to say.

One thing everyone who was in the room agrees on is that you could hear a pin drop as Swift used the speech to get even bolder about the meat of these disputes. Some would say it’s because they were riveted by her boldness in speaking truth to power, others because they just felt uncomfortable. Says one fellow honoree who works in a high position in the industry (and who’s worked with some high-profile Braun clients): “People were excited for her at the beginning of the speech. But once she started going in a negative direction at an event that is supposed to be celebrating accomplishments and rah-rah for women, I felt it fell flat with a good portion of the room, because it wasn’t the appropriate place to be saying it.”

Wasn’t it intimidating for Swift, knowing she might be polarizing an auditorium full of the most powerful people in the business? “Well, I do sleep well at night knowing that I’m right,” she responds, “and knowing that in 10 years it will have been a good thing that I spoke about artists’ rights to their art, and that we bring up conversations like: Should record deals maybe be for a shorter term, or how are we really helping artists if we’re not giving them the first right of refusal to purchase their work if they want to?”

“Obviously, anytime you’re standing up against or for anything, you’re never going to receive unanimous praise. But that’s what forces you to be brave. And that’s what’s different about the way I live my life now.” (Braun’s camp did not respond to a request for comment.)

One thing Taylor Swift can’t bend to her determined will is her family’s health. She revealed a few years ago that her mother, Andrea, a beloved figure among the thousands of fans who’ve met her at road shows, is battling breast cancer. Swift addressed the uncertainty of that struggle in an anguished song on her latest album, “Soon You’ll Get Better.” Many who view “Miss Americana” will look for signs of how her mom is doing. The subject comes up in a section of the film that includes a relatively light-hearted scene in in which it’s shown that one of Andrea Swift’s ways of saying “eff you” to cancer recently was to break the mold and bring a canine — her “cancer dog” — into a famously feline-friendly family.

The real answer may come in Swift’s touring activity for “Lover.” Whereas typically she’d spend nine months in the year after an album release on the road, she plans to limit herself to four stadium dates in America this summer and a trip around the festival circuit in Europe. This may not be 100% for personal reasons: “I wanted to be able to perform in places that I hadn’t performed in as much, and to do things I hadn’t done before, like Glastonbury,” she says. “I feel like I haven’t done festivals, really, since early in my career — they’re fun and bring people together in a really cool way. But I also wanted to be able to work as much as I can handle right now, with everything that’s going on at home. And I wanted to figure out a way that I could do both those things.”

Is being able to be there for her mother the main concern? “Yeah, that’s it. That’s the reason,” she says. “I mean, we don’t know what is going to happen. We don’t know what treatment we’re going to choose. It just was the decision to make at the time, for right now, for what’s going on.”

In her case, it’s as if her manager had taken seriously ill as well as the person she’s always been closest to, all at once. “Everyone loves their mom; everyone’s got an important mom,” she allows. “But for me, she’s really the guiding force. Almost every decision I make, I talk to her about it first. So obviously it was a really big deal to ever speak about her illness.” During filming, when Andrea’s breast cancer had returned for a second time, “she was going through chemo, and that’s a hard enough thing for a person to go through.” Then it got harder. Speaking about this latest development publicly for the first time, Swift quietly reveals: “While she was going through treatment, they found a brain tumor. And the symptoms of what a person goes through when they have a brain tumor is nothing like what we’ve ever been through with her cancer before. So it’s just been a really hard time for us as a family.”

Compared with that, nearly any other topic the movie might address would pale. But it finds weightiness in addressing other kinds of unhealthiness, like the physical expectations that are placed on women in general and celebrity women specifically, Swift being no exception. In this department, she has her own heroines. “I love people like Jameela Jamil, because he way she speaks about body image, it’s almost like she speaks in a hook. Women are held to such a ridiculous standard of beauty, and we’re seeing so much on social media that makes us feel like we are less than, or we’re not what we should be, that you kind of need a mantra to repeat in your head when you start to have unhealthy thoughts. I swear the way Jameela speaks is like lyrics — it gets stuck in my head and it calms me down.”

Swift’s collaborator in this messaging, Wilson, was on a list of potential directors Netflix gave her when she expressed interest in possibly doing a documentary to follow the concert special that premiered on the service just over a year ago. You could discern a feminist message, if you chose to, in the fact that Swift chose a director most well known for a documentary about abortion providers, “After Tiller.” Swift says she was most impressed, though, that Wilson’s docs look for nuance and subtlety in addressing subjects that do lend themselves to soapboxes, and their first conversation was about their mutual desire to avoid “propaganda” in any form.

If there’s a feminist agenda in “Miss Americana,” Wilson and Swift wanted it to emerge naturally, although the director admits it was pretty blatant from the outset, given that she set up the film (which is co-produced by Morgan Neville, the director’s “sounding board”) with an all-female crew. Or nearly all-female, says Wilson, laughing, “I will say that we did always have male production assistants, because I like trying to show people that men can fetch coffee for women.”

Adds Wilson, “When I started filming, it was before she’d come out politically. She knew that she was coming out of a very dark period, and wanted collaborate on something that captured what she was going through and that was really raw and honest and emotionally intimate.” The political awakening, the director says, “was a profound decision for her to make. In that, I saw this feminist coming of age story that I personally connected with, and that I really think women and girls around the world will see themselves in.”

“The bigger your career gets, the more you struggle with the idea that a lot of people see you the same way they see an iPhone or a Starbucks.” TAYLOR SWIFT

The film borrows its title from a song on the “Lover” album, “Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince,” that’s maybe the one fully allegorical song Swift has ever released — and, in its fashion, is a great protest song. The entire lyric is a metaphor for how Swift grew up as an unblinking patriot and has had to reluctantly leave behind her naiveté in the age of Trump. Her partner on that track, as well as other message songs like “You Need to Calm Down” and “The Man,” was a co-writer and co-producer new to her stable of collaborators this time around, Joel Little.

With the song “Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince,” although the lyrics are cloaked in metaphor, “We like to think it was a very clear statement,” Little says. “There are lots of little hidden messages within that song that are all pointing toward the way that she thinks and feels about politics and the United States. I love that it uses a lot of classic Taylor Swift imagery, in terms of the songwriting topics of high school and cheerleaders, as a clever nod to what she’s done in the past, but tied in with a heavy political message.”

“Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince” doesn’t actually appear in the documentary, but the director says the film’s title is understood by fans as an obvious reference to political themes in the number. “Even if you don’t know the song,” Wilson says, “I see the movie as looking at the flip side of being America’s sweetheart, so I like how the title evokes that too.”

The doc doesn’t lack for its own protest songs though. In the wake of her midterm disappointment, Swift is seen writing an anthem for millennials who might have come away disillusioned with the political process. That previously unheard song, “Only the Young,” is seen being demo-ed before it plays in full over the end credits; it’ll be released as a digital single in conjunction with the doc. Key lyric: ““You did all that you could do / The game was rigged, the ref got tricked/ The wrong ones think they’re right / We were outnumbered — this time.”

“One thing I think is amazing about her,” says Wilson, “is that she goes to the studio and to songwriting as a place to process what she’s going through. I loved how, when she got the Grammy news (about “Reputation”), this isn’t someone who’s going to feel sorry for herself or say ‘That wasn’t right.’ She’s like, ‘Okay, I’m going to work even harder.’ You see her strength of character in that moment when she gets that news. And then with the election results, I loved how she channeled so many of her thoughts and feelings into ‘Only the Young.’ It was a great way to kind of show how stuff that happens in her life goes directly into the songs; you get to witness that in both cases.

So is the film aimed at satisfying the fan base or teasing the unconvinced hordes who might dial it up as a free stream? “I think it’s a little bit of both,” Swift says. “I chose Netflix because it’s a very vast, accessible medium to people who are just like, ‘Hey, what’s this? I’m bored.’ I love that, because I do so many things that cater specifically to fans that like my music, I think it’s important to put yourself out there to people who don’t care at all about you.”

In the wake of the last round of Kanye-gate, stung by the backlash of those who took his side, Swift took a three-year break from interviews. The mantra of her 2017 album “Reputation” and subsequent tour was “No explanations.” But her Beyoncé-style press blackout was a passing phase. With “Lover” and now, especially, the documentary, she could hardly be more about the explanations. Although this interview is the only one she currently plans to do about the documentary, it’s clear that she’s come back into a season of openness, and that she considers it her natural habitat.

“I really like the whole discussion around music. And during ‘Reputation,’ it never felt like it was ever going to be about music, no matter what I said or did,” she says. “I approach albums differently, in how I want to show them to the world or what I feel comfortable with at that time in my life.” Being more transparent “feels great with this album. I really feel like I could just keep making stuff — it’s that vibe right now. I don’t think I’ve ever written this much. That’s exhibited in ‘Lover’ having the most songs that I’ve ever had on an album” (18, to be exact). “But even after I made the album, I kept writing and going in the studio. That’s a new thing I’ve experienced this time around. That openness kind of feels like you finally got the lid off a jar you’ve been working at for years.”

Cipher-dom never could have stood for long for someone who’s established herself as one of the most accomplished confessional singer-songwriters in pop history. “I don’t really operate very well as an enigma,” she says. “It’s not fulfilling to me. It works really well in a lot of pop careers, but I think that it makes me feel completely unable to do what I had gotten in this to do, which is to communicate to people. I live for the feeling of standing on a stage and saying, ‘I feel this way,’ and the crowd responding with ‘We do too!’ And me being like, ‘Really?’ And they’re like, ‘Yes!’”

Swift believes talking things up again isn’t a form of giving in to narcissism — it’s a way of warding off commodification.

“The bigger your career gets, the more you struggle with the idea that a lot of people see you the same way they see an iPhone or a Starbucks,” she muses. “They’ve been inundated with your name in the media, and you become a brand. That’s inevitable for me, but I do think that it’s really necessary to feel like I can still communicate with people. And as a songwriter, it’s really important to still feel human and process things in a human way. The through line of all that is humanity, and reaching out and talking to people and having them see things that aren’t cute.

[sincerelyreidburke]

Don't know why but all of the sudden I'm starting to wonder, what exactly was going through Quinn's mind after Nando left the Halloween party?

Something like this!

(Thank you for the ask!!!!!🤍🤍🤍)

//

Quinn has been waiting all night.

What for, he isn’t sure. The catch, maybe. For the other shoe to drop. He thought, beyond a doubt, that making the active decision to attend a frat party would mean bad news for him. That something would go wrong, something had to. Nevermind that it’s his first real college party in the first place— it’s also the ice hockey team.

And it’s not that he has anything against hockey. It’s popular back home, and he knows Samwell won some kind of a big game last year. It’s just that Quinn Cooper and sports do not usually mix. He tends to stay far away from that kind of action. The closest he’s gotten to a sport would probably be playing Troy in that one community production of High School Musical the summer before eleventh grade.

The point is, he really counted on something going wrong tonight.

And you could ask, hm, why would a person get himself into a situation out of which he was only expecting something to go wrong? The truth is… Quinn just wanted to branch out a bit, push his comfort zone. He likes Denice, thinks she’s sweet, and he’s grateful she invited everybody to the party.

Also, he made his costume. He didn’t really get a chance to wear it for much longer than the hour-long drama club general membership meeting (Halloween edition) on Thursday night. And if he didn’t go out tonight, he would’ve just spent it holed up in his room looking for bootlegs online.

Thus: frat party. The Samwell Hockey Haus. The… cutest boy he’s ever seen.

He didn’t plan on this, didn’t factor boys into his agenda for the evening. He thought he would be spending time with Denice, and, yes, okay, probably meeting some hockey players, but not… this. Not sitting on the porch with one until long past midnight, losing track of time in the conversation. Not this lightness in his chest he’s not sure he’s ever felt before.

He’s not going to read too far into this, because he doesn’t get his hopes up. Even though this guy made a sexuality-disclosing comment no less than ten minutes into their conversation tonight. And even though he let down his own guard enough to do the same himself— much later, but he still did it.

He’s met other gay guys. He does theatre, for the love of God. He’s just… never really met someone quite like Sebastián. Never hit it off so easily with a guy, never completely lost track of time talking to him like that.

But he isn’t going to get his hopes up. He can’t.

He pushes his way back into the living-room of the house after Sebastián’s friend in the chef costume takes him away for the night. He wonders, dimly, if he’ll ever see him again, but then again, if he can find him through Denice, would it really be that difficult?

Besides, who knows if Sebastián would even want to see him again. He kept him all night, while his hockey friends partied inside. Something in him knows that if he hadn’t showed up to this party, Sebastián’s night would have likely gone very differently. It would’ve… been more fun, probably. He feels a little guilty for it.

There’s still something of a disaster scene going on inside the actual frat house, overseen by the DJ in the robot mask, who, by the way, seems to run on a never-ending supply of energy. Quinn stands to the side of the front door and goes straight for the volume in his ears, turning it down to a level that allows him to be able to hear himself think again without the constant intrusion of bass. He can still feel the floor vibrate with the sound. Apparently, the DJ has no concept of volume control.

Now to find Denice. He’ll thank her, and then he’ll go back to his room and sleep. A respectable amount.

And maybe, the next time he sees her, he’ll ask about Sebastián. Maybe. He’s not sure he wants to let himself do that. There would be no use setting himself up for rejection, if it turns out he isn’t interested.

But tonight… what a lovely night. It can’t have been a fluke.

He wants to listen to Grease. It was playing earlier anyway.

Cautiously, he steps into the general crowd. Denice’s skirt was bright-pink, and he thinks that would make her easy to spot, but he isn’t having any luck scanning the room for her. Tony isn’t anywhere to be seen, either. He tries to avoid sweaty bodies and/or being trampled by tall people as he searches for a familiar face, but there’s nothing. It’s a wall of unfamiliarity. He hasn’t seen any of these people before.

Maybe this is where the other shoe drops. He gets lost and disoriented, a useless drama club freshman, in a hockey party crowd.

He should have just gone back to Wilson with Sebastián and his friend.

“Hey, are you okay?”

He must look lost, which is horribly embarrassing, but evident given the look on the person’s face who has just said this to him. It’s a tall guy, probably just as tall as Sebastián was, and he’s standing against the wall next to another, equally tall guy. They must be hockey players. “You look slightly stressed,” the guy adds.

Quinn really doesn’t want to be laughed at or made fun of. He puts up his guard. “I’m alright,” he replies, squaring his shoulders like they aren’t what feels like a foot taller than him. “Have you seen Denice?”

“Oh, Ford?” The guy who spoke smiles a little, then shakes his head. He has brown skin and green eyes, with a backwards red ball cap over his curly hair, and he’s very handsome. Also, he’s holding the other guy’s hand, and he’s tucked it into his back pocket. There’s a stuffed animal of some kind in another of his pockets. A lobster or a crab, maybe? “She went to bed, I think.”

“She was chaperoning her tipsy boyfriend,” adds the other guy, who is possibly the most ginger person Quinn has ever seen in his life. “He… can be a lot when he’s drunk.”

The first guy laughs knowingly. “But we can pass a message along to her,” he says, “if you need. Yoo— wait!” Something like realization dawns on his face. He seems a little tipsy, too, but definitely not completely drunk. “Are you her drama freshman?”

Oh, gee. Does Quinn have a reputation among the hockey team already? “I am,” he replies, standing his ground. The good news is that neither of the guys seem to have any interest in making fun of them. “I just wanted to thank her for inviting me.”

“Ohh. That’s cool, man.” The red hat guy pauses. “Sorry she left. I’ll chirp her tomorrow, if you want.”

Quinn has no idea what this means. He brushes off the lapel of his jacket. “I suppose I can just text her.”

“Do you need anything?” asks the ginger. His ears are huge. “There’s water in the kitchen.”

“Oh, I’m quite alright.” Quinn pauses. He should just get out of here. He doesn’t feel uncomfortable, exactly, especially not knowing these two hockey players are holding hands in plain sight— but he’d feel much more comfortable back in his bed. “But thank you,” he adds. “I think I’d best get back to my room.”

“Do you need a walking buddy?” asks red hat guy.

“Oh, goodness, no.” Quinn smooths his hair. “But thank you. I do appreciate it.”

“Of course, bro,” he replies. “Stay safe out there. Have a good night.”

“Thank you; I will.” He nods over his shoulder at the both of them, then signs goodbye. “You as well.”

The crowd takes just as much effort to push back through, and when he finally emerges back out onto the porch, he dusts himself off and takes a deep breath. That was a far too sweaty and crowded experience for his liking. It was much nicer being out here, on the porch with Sebastián, having a conversation.

He shakes himself out a little on his way down the front steps. He shouldn’t be daydreaming about a boy he just met tonight, especially one he’s not sure he’ll ever get the chance to see again.

Should he ask Denice? Maybe he should just ask Denice.

But— not tonight, he decides, as he walks away from the frat house and back towards the street. In the morning, he’ll decide if he wants to ask Denice about him.

Tonight, he’ll go back to his room. He’ll get changed and put his costume away. He’ll possibly listen to Grease. He’ll indulge himself in this daydream just a little longer, because he still can’t shake that lighthearted feeling.

But after that, he’ll go to bed. And in the morning, he’ll text Denice to thank her.

And after that… well, he’ll cross that bridge when he comes to it.