#or take the time to put their scripts through another round or two of editing

[non-operator]

okay... let me start off with "I'm sorry" because I lied and I'm bored, gave H*llavu B*ss a go because my feed is full of it and HH now and I have no impulse control and I also can't leave things unfinished. And HB is free on youtube; I can technically pirate hh but I don't want to be in that much effort for that...

And like, I think it's the same as I feel about that one song from HH. It's not that great, though I guess I can see why people like it? But in a "I don't think you people ever moved past deviant art era plot and art". Which, to be nice, isn't bad by itself but objectively speaking, there is better media and stories out there. All in all, I'm giving it a 2.5/10; I think the best way to summarize HB is that it's a show made for people who were already in love with it before watching it, not a show that tries to win over its audience.

Plot

It is episodic, so I will admit that plot isn't that big of a factor in the series. But I will say that it loses sight of its premise pretty fast. Like, it's advertised and set up as a "wacky hijinks in a found family assassination business", but after the first few episodes or so, it stops showing them doing work/killing people and how they go about that, and focuses more on what happens around or outside of work. For example, ep 6 and 7 just doesn't even show them working and skips straight to the aftermath and what they're going to do after work. The Spring Break episode does show them working, but it glosses over it; IMP is more like a plot device than a premise. Ep 2 straight up has them doing other stuff (aka bodyguarding, something that is explicitly said to be not a service IMP offers). Fuck it, even the Harvest Moon Festival ep is not work-related. For a show that is supposedly centered on IMP and the main cast killing humans on behalf of sinners with a grudge, it doesn't actually interact or play with that concept. And I think it basically drops completely out of focus in Season 2.

And like, I can understand if the show wants to make it more about character dynamics than the business, but the pilot (and ep 1 kind of) promises to explore that *through* IMP work. And that leads into the next big problem with HB

Character

I feel like everyone except Blitzo is underdeveloped, especially the women in the show. We get a lot of insight into Blitzo's motivations and emotional baggage and how he copes with that in unhealthy and asshole-y ways. But literally everyone else is kind of thrown under the bus unless it's relevant to Blitzo. The only character that kind of escapes this treatment (but not wholly) is Moxxie.

But Millie is only defined by how she's Moxxie's wife, and basically nothing else. Loona-- does have some more characterization than Millie, but her biggest-- and basically only-- role in the show is being Blitzo's difficult adopted daughter; her character arc about idk getting more in-touch with her feelings and being more expressive is centered around how she feels about Blitzo. And then the side characters: Octavia and Stella. Octavia is also about being a daughter to her father, and that's kind of it! Even though she's struggling with her parents' (incoming) divorce, she's only shown to be interacting/having an emotional connection with Stolas; Stella is never in the picture. Stella is-- just a major bitch, and that's it. That's all she has to her character.

But Octavia and Stella are side characters, so I can accept them having pretty flat personalities, but Millie and Loona? Those two are part of the main fucking cast. How are they being sidelined this hard??

I think a lot of the show revolves around Blitzo, so if the characters don't matter to him or don't bounce off well with him, they kind of get shafted by the writing. Like Millie. She is just generally so easygoing with Blitzo's antics that there's nothing for Blitzo to really react to there, so she's just essentially a background character.

Speaking of, almost all the characters and relationships are kind of built to parallel Blitzo and Stolitz (we'll get to this ship in a minute). Like, Moxxie is supposed to be a nice foil to Blitzo because they're both afraid of rejection, but they deal with that in opposite ways; Moxxie is polite, professional, no backbone because he doesn't want confrontation lest it lead to rejection whereas Blitzo is crass and a dick about everything so he can push people away before they reject/hurt him. And they both want to be loved, but Moxxie has a healthy relationship with Millie whereas Blitzo has no such thing in his life, so another contrast. And also daddy issues.

This is okay on its own. It makes a compelling dynamic between Blitzo as a boss and friend to Moxxie.

But then they do this for almost every character?? Loona (basically) has daddy issues and can't express herself that well because she's under-socialized and Trauma, Octavia is a daddy's girl and is too emo to communicate her feelings, Stolas has daddy issues and also communication issues, Fizzarolli has daddy issues (when he doesn't need to???)

And then there's the fact that it feels like the other relationships we see are supposed to work as parallels/foils to Stolitz as well? Moxxie and Millie and happy and healthy and committed, unlike Stolitz. Fizz and Asmodeus manage to work around that class disparity/power imbalance because they can communicate with each other, unlike Stoliz. They kind of just function as a "this is what Stolitz could be if they got over themselves and talked"

And generational trauma and the desire to be loved can be a major and shared theme, but there should at least be nuance between each representation of it?? These are literally all the same in that it boils down to "I don't know how to ask for proper intimacy".

Ships

There's only one main ship and it's Stolitz, and... I find it compelling?? But it's just not executed well enough. They just rush through the development, so when the show actually reveals that there's mutual attraction, it just feels like it comes out of nowhere and the audience has to do a lot of the legwork to figure out what the fuck happened from point a to point b.

It's also like, it steals a lot of attention from other aspects of the show. I feel like a lot of Season 2 episodes kind of focuses more on that relationship in favor of other characters who need screen time and development (like Millie)

I could give a really long analysis on Stolitz, but I'm just going to say that the problem kind of just boils down to the show doesn't sell that they actually feel genuine affection for each other. I can see them projecting their own emotional baggage onto the other and using each other, but there's no transition from the transactional relationship they have in the beginning to liking each other as people. In fact, I don't think they even know each other outside of sex and work. Which is bad. Because I can buy them fucking up communicating their wants and thus settling for fucking each other for "professional" reasons, but if the show really wants to sell this ship, there has to be something genuine between them that draws them to each other.

Which is to say, Stolitz is a ship for people who already love and want the ship, not for people who are just There. As in, the show seems to make the assumption that the audience wants this ship to happen and that the ship will happen, so they don't really take the time to establish a solid foundation and growth arc for it. It just feels like big emotional or romantic moments without the actual necessary context to make it work. Which is just a problem for the general show.

Pacing

It's bad. It's so bad. I can understand leaving arcs unresolved for a bit so that there's suspense or whatever, but they keep adding more arcs and problems while leaving unfinished plotlines unfinished. Only to then resolve it super quickly. Like ??????? It's all so cramped and rushed-- but then they sometimes slow it down in the worst way possible in that it just kind of ignores previous developments for a one-off episode or something (like S2 Ep 2 where they just ignore the Stolitz drama for wacky adventure in the human world and Stolas and Blitzo are just acting like nothing wrong happened). (And I Know! I know they showed details in the background that explain that this happens because both of them are ignoring the problem, but even so, they shouldn't be acting so casual with each other; it should be made more clear that they're both still uncomfortable but *acting*) (and something that changes the relationship should be shown to the audience clearly? Not just put in as "blink and you'll miss it" text messages??)

And sometimes this rushed pacing leads to info-dumps or telling, not showing. Like with Stolas' focus episode where we learn his backstory. It's not super bad, but it weakens the impact of big plot moments; we just hear Stolas saying he endured his loveless marriage for his daughter, but we. never really see that...? The times he's with her when she's a child doesn't count because Stella's not a picture in that. The one time we kind of see something related to this statement is when Stella's kind of being loud in the kitchen and he checks in on her sleeping peacefully, but like. That's not really and example of him enduring Stella's temper and insults for Octavia's sake. He hasn't even seen Stella at all before he drops by Octavia's room. The next time is when Stella is throwing an imp at him in the kitchen and Stolas is trying to be... nice? reasonable? But at this point, I think it's clear to Octavia that her parents don't love each other. And even then, we never really see him paying attention to her or expressing concern about what Octavia might think or feel during the fight, or trying to reassure her that this is just a normal spat between married couples afterwards as damage control. We can just take his word for it, but it's just not as powerful. I'd say the same goes for when we learn about Moxxie and his father/traumatic childhood. Would've been great to see how he struggles with that specifically or had more clues to that before we see him completely resolve to stand up to his father.

It just feels like the show itself expects the audience to be completely in love with it, so it doesn't really bother to develop its world or characters until Big Emotional Moments and at that point, it just gives the necessary context to pull it off real fast, so everything just feels so... compact and dense and not very natural. It's not trying to sell itself to a new audience, it's catering to an audience that's been supporting them since the pilot.

[seldnei]

Taking stock of the writing: 2023

For any new followers: this is my annual post about my writing in the past year.  This is purely for my own mental health–the tag says “seldnei is tired of feeling like a slacker” for a reason.  Please feel free to skip.

So what did I accomplish in 2023?

Well, it was a helluva year, again.  We’ve acquired another teenager, with all that entails, which is a good thing overall but definitely added some chaos.  My boss retired earlier than expected, so day job went sideways for a while.  My cousin died, which was entirely unexpected.  My father died, which was both more and less unexpected.  Also the eldest BFF’s mom died, which was not traumatic for me, per se, but being able to spend a week with him was, like acquiring Q, a good thing surrounded by chaos.  Oh, and Z got his ADHD diagnosis, which has triggered some interesting realizations about the assumed neurotypicality of everyone in the household.  We are, in fact, that family who said, “But that can’t be a ‘disorder’; everyone is like that, right?”

I am exhausted, and my brain feels not only full but occasionally like it’s eating itself with self-analysis.

BUT.  I am here.  And I wrote things.

Stories/Poems/Etc.

Finished the second Exorcist story, and decided it did need to be mashed up with the first one.  I dunno, it’s still cuter than I like. 

Did the requested rewrite on the Teachout camel story, and got rejected again (I vaguely recall this as another rewrite request, but I could be wrong and can’t be arsed to dig through my email right now). I kind of think this editor and I have fundamentally different ideas as to what these stories are.  Keep this in mind as I get into future plans, btw, as it was a contributing factor.

Wrote some more TMA fanfic.

“And the Forest Sings of Secrets and the Dead” for FUCKIT, which prompted the best review of all time from Q: “What the fuck, Laura?”

“The Modern Eurydice: with Leto in the Mountains of Delos,” also for FUCKIT, which is probably my favorite thing I wrote this year.  I really hope there are more modern Eurydice stories somewhere in my head, because I loved writing this one and the first one.

Poetry:

“Elpis at the Farmer’s market” for FUCKIT

“4am, April 2023,” also for FUCKIT, the poem my husband wants to frame and put on the wall

Random bits and bobs in my notebook

I wrote three podcast scripts because I really want to make a podcast. 

Script one is a monologue type thing, continuing my explorations of ghosts and terrible mothers.

Scripts two and three are the first two episodes of a short series that adapts the not!Tempest/not!Mosquito Coast/not!Island of Dr Moreau thing I’ve been fucking around with for like four years now.  I think three more scripts and I’ll have the series completed, and then I can turn my attention to things like casting and recording and editing and hosting and posting and dear lord what the fuck.

 I started a bunch of other things:

The baseball/ghost romance novella, where I am trying out iterative outlining.

Some abortive attempts to find my way into my post-apocalypse cunning folk thing

A start and some notes for a gothic horror story that I probably will get back to in a while (watch this space in, like, three years)

Other Stuff

“An Oral History: The Dead Queen at 1223 Murchison Row” sold and came out in Artifice & Craft. 

I created my author website, which I’m still very pleased with.  Also did some blogging, but not as much as I would have liked.  Still, not sure when I had time?

Submitted things sporadically.

Kept up my morning writing routine, though it did have some disruptions here and there and the time got a little compressed.  But the biggest thing, I think, is that I kept going.  There was a lot of stuff going on in my life this year, and I wrote through it all.

Novel and Goals for 2024

Okay, this is where we get into the stuff that makes me nervous.

So the novel is on a second round of reading at a publisher.  This is taking forever, but the publisher has also posted periodically that they’re still working their way through subs, and frankly, I am entirely willing to let them do their thing because, as I said last year, I think this might be the absolute worst time to try and find an agent or publisher.  This is one of like two sparks of interest I have gotten for a book that a professional editor says is very good, so … yeah, we will let that lie.  Additionally, I’ve been reading some stuff from established trad authors who are also  having issues selling things, and I’m like … uuuggghhh.

Bearing that in mind … I’m going to start looking at and dipping my toe into self-publishing this year.  Guys, I am so tired of thinking about what an editor might or might not find appealing enough to publish; I want to write my weird little stories and have people read them.  I don’t even care if it’s just my friends and I only sell, like, three copies of anything.  I have long since resigned myself to never being a full-time writer, so while extra cash would be nice, it’s not something I desperately need.  (That said, I am going to be selling my work because it’s work, so.  But I have thoughts about discount codes and freebies, so we’ll see how it goes.)  I’d like to be able to hire an editor, commission covers, that kind of thing, though, so I’m also thinking about starting a Patreon to help fund those aspects of it, with rewards and all that good stuff.

So I can publish the novellas and short story collections, and if the publisher passes on my manuscript, I can publish the Teachout book and start writing the second one.

This is the scary part, though.  Am I too scattered to make something like this work?  What if no one has any interest? What about pirates (both cyber and sailor)?  Will I annoy people with self-promo?  Will people in my circle think less of me?  (Do I care about the people who would think less of me for doing this?) How will this affect my other writing?  OH GOD HOW DOES THIS AFFECT MY TAXES?!

I think I can do it.  I might ask y’all for cheerleading here and there.  I have a planner and Mr. Seldnei.

Every time I think about it and get scared, I think second Teachout book no matter what happens and I’m like … yeah. Yeah, I think I need to at least try.

So, goals for 2024:

FUCKIT subs

finish this baseball thing

Podcast

Patreon (?)

Self-publishing

AAAAAAAAAAA.

[survivor-trinidad-and-tobago]

Episode 3: "I put my entire calypsussy into this challenge"—Zee

In this round: A twist splits the two tribes into three; Kolby and Champ sow the seeds to gaslight Alex at merge; Drea is medically evacuated in the middle of the challenge, leaving Raffy to take on the editing role for the Movie Trailer challenge; Nick shows up the day before the challenge is due with an entirely new, AI-generated script for consideration, then gets sick and doesn't submit any footage for the challenge; Kathryn offers herself up for tribute when Maracas inevitably loses; and Colin finds an idol—hope they make good use of it later!

Soca Confessionals

Alex

Well, my game just changed by a fucking lot. I just lost my entire alliance AND Champ. I at least have Steven, who kind of got me into this mess, and Kaleigh but I haven't talked game with her at all. I've gotta assume Steven has been talking with her through the screen cap challenge so I hope we can stick together. They're at least both strong in challenges. But Champ let me know that Raffy is here to play and that he plays WELL, so I've either gotta go for him first or figure out what I can do to get on his good side. I've at least got an extra vote, and I'm gonna be "transparent" about my shot in the dark because in a 3 v 3 at tribal I have to assume they'd think it be reckless and selfish to ever use. Okay. I can do this.

Michael

I really like Alex and Kaleigh. My biggest allies were Drea and Raffy, but drea had to leave so that kind of messed some things up. I don't feel super secure. Probably going to have to flip and go Raffy when it comes to it. The other 3 seem too tight. Raffy is my biggest threat since we are the only 2 Calypso left on this tribe. We're both targets. My path to the end is going to be paved with friendship and challenge wins. Will hunt when I have time!

Kaleigh

what a wild ride it’s been!! okay we swapped groups and now my tribe is me, steven, alex, michael, and raffy. i’ve learned (thru steven who learned from taffy) that zee is siblings w aj which blew my mind. INFORMATION! ummm alex and steven and i have a little original soca 3 alliance, still have not been to tribal, andddd I MISS ZEE!!!! their lil wes anderson video was so cuteeeee.

last night i was up late and was (i think) the first person to see that we have another boat excursion. my thinking was, OH, YAY, I’VE NEVER BEEN AROUND WHEN A BOAT CAME ! bc the two other times we’ve had a boat come the first person to respond and be like “i’ll go!” ended up going. so i was like, ok, i’m not gonna say i wanna go cuz i kinda don’t, and steven’s already been on an excursion, and i do nottttt want any kind of advantage to be outside of my soca alliance, so i’m just gonna respond and vote for alex and then everyone else will and we’ll all be good. NOPE! in the morning raffy responds and is like “i kinda wanted to go” LMAO BABE? WHAT? SORRY, NO. so alex and steven both msg me and are like uhhh what are u doing LMFAOOOOO LIKE ALEX DEFINITELY DID NOT WANT TO GO AND STEVEN WAS LIKE ?????? DOES ALEX WANT TO GO?????? oopsies. anyway so i told them both i was just up late and eager to not let michael or raffy get an advantage. steven was like ok makes sense , but alex was sooooooo resistant bc he did the hero challenge and got a shot in the dark, like he even suggested that he vote for raffy in the hopes of doing a split? absolutely not! anyway this was my first time feeling like a messy bitch in the game cuz i clearly pissed off or at least ruffled the feathers of my soca alliance with my 2am decision to throw Alex’s name out there and vote for him for the excursion.

okay what else… i like michael, he seems chill and we talked a little about tv stuff. i get the distinct feeling that raffy has zero interest in working with me. steven and alex have both mentioned talking to him privately about the game and i’m like bro he rly isn’t talking to me LMAO like his bio is like “i’m a book nerd!” so i messaged him day 1 and was like omg me too, u reading anything good? and he was like no i’ve been busy. and the convo died right there LMAO which like, sure ok, ur busy… but i’ve never met a book nerd who didn’t like LEAAAPPPPPPP on a chance to talk to another book person about their favs or what they’ve been reading or whatever. so yeah that feels a little sticky bc it seems like raffy is talking about the game with evvvvveryone in my tribe except me. BUT i feel good about my alliance with steven and alex and hopefully zee and champ toooooooooooooo if i make it to the mergey merge.

also i found a dog thanks to zee, NOW WE HAVE A DOG! the vote for keeping it or not hasn’t concluded but hopefully the dog will stay? like who’s gonna vote no for the dog? come on. anyway strongest allies rn are steven and alex and hopefully zee - if i HAD to target someone it would be raffy only bc it *rly* feels like he doesn’t want to work w me, but i’m def not targeting him rn bc i know he’s allied w steven and possibly alex too and their numbers are my numbers rn ((i think)).

let’s see, who are the biggest threats… zee, i’m starting to think steven, and also maybe alex… why am i just naming my literal closest allies LMFAOOOOOOOJFKDLSAJFDKLSFJDKLAS i didn’t even mean to do that. i guess i’m just seeing UP CLOSE more of their game play than anyone else’s so i’m like OH UR RLY PAYING ATTN!! you know i will say that the idea of voting off someone i'm close w sends a chill down my spine. like i literally don't think i could vote for steven or zee at this point. okay well there’s my update

Raffy

Ok I have a lot to say. So from this tribe swap, I actually didn’t mind how I got swapped. Steven was with me and Andrea was with me. I didn’t feel swap screwed and felt that I was in a good position to survive till either merge or the next swap. However, then Andrea had to leave game. Now I kind of feel all alone. Sure there’s Michael but I don’t really know where I stand with him. And Steven does have some connections with Kaleigh and Alex from original tribes. I’m definitely worried about next tribal.

I did find like 4 advantages though! One challenge advantage, one transparent advantage, one advantage to talk to someone on another tribe, and an idol! So I’m swimming in riches at this point. I feel much more confident with these tools by my side.

During the challenge, my tribe was a little annoying with getting good clips that weren’t bad. Also not Kaleigh just outright refusing to send me b-roll lol. That rubbed me the wrong way. And I wish I pushed more for not doing vertical cause it did look bad and had to use some BS excuse on the judges so they wouldn’t dock too many points. Right now my tribe rankings goes as follows from best to “I wanna vote out first”: Steven, Alex, Michael, Kaleigh. I put Kaleigh in the bottom because early in the morning she locked in her vote for Alex to go on the excursion without discussing it with anyone! Like that’s shady and lets me know they might be working together. Well now I wanna go on excursion so that duo doesn’t get their way.

Steven

--

--

Calypso Confessionals

Champ

Omg where do I start… Steven and Astyn go on an excursion and then the tribe splits and STEVEN DOESNT PICK ME? NAHHH omg I got stuck on the inactive tribe lmfao but I’m so glad tribes split evenly and I got Zee on my tribe cuz the girl is putting in the mother fucking work, the Marcas tribe or whatever’s video was so bad that it should’ve been a comedy, I was laughing so hard(sorry that’s kinda mean but I mean it with love). Anywayyys Kolby and I planned to spread lies to our tribes in hopes of making things less boring lol. Jacks cool, Colin’s cool, Zee’s cool, Lexi’s cool, Astyn doesn’t talk lmfao and the clip of the white wall when Zee wanted an esthetic background had me DEAD

Lexi

Okay the movie challenge was so cool. Zee once again took the lead in a way that I so appreciated, she really made the whole challenge so easy for everyone else. I feel like I’ll always feel confident if I’m in the same tribe as Zee.

Zee

I put my entire calypsussy into this challenge, and it paid off 😎

Astyn

Colin

I FOUND AN IDOLLLL

i'm so EXCITED. right before a swap, this is perfect timing. it's gonna be so hard for me but I'm gonna try my best to not say anything about it to anyone.

--

I was feelin really nervous for this challenge because it seemed like Zee was literally doing all the work. but sis came THROUGH. the trailer turned out so so cool and WE WON!!

first round i don't have to go to tribal!! i'm gonna enjoy my lil break hehe

Jack

--

Maracas Confessionals

Kolby

Eman

Things what happened to me today 1 - A bird flew into our picture window and died 2 - My crutches fell and knocked over my tumbler of cold brew 3 - I dumped the very last of my loose powder all over the bathroom floor 4 - I tore one of my two remaining pair of jeans 5 - My favorite necklace broke 6 - I got ripped from the clutches of my tribe

1 and 6 upset me the most. Though 5 has me pretty unhappy as well.

As I write this I don't even know where I've landed yet.

--

Seriously - that's what I feel like this morning. Everyone's favorite ACE auntie eman is having a very rough time being positive this morning, but that doesn't mean I'll stop trying.

But if something doesn't give soon the carrot may have to give way for the stick because I can only try the same thing so many times before I question whether I'm giving way to insanity.

Anyway . . . TONY and I are getting on very well. And I've had a few good one-on-one conversations with Kolby(!) (who is probably too young to know why the exclamation point after his name makes me giggle with memories of a failed presidential run from a former governor of Florida) and I wish he would engage as actively in the primary chat.

Tanner also started a chat with me and then ghosted after I replied. I've called Kathryn out in the primary but I might try something with her privately today--bonding over the shared "mom" role or something cuz I refuse to just give up. Yeah, I'm kinda bummed at being abandoned (although I did tell Steven I would accept his decision regardless, and part of me maybe wonders if he let me go because he knew I would fare well on my own and could then come back, so it just means Astyn didn't do their homework and/or Steven persuaded them not to pick me--and/or based on my bio I was unappealing . . . there's a lot of ways I could read this, and--like I said, I'm trying to stay positive and keep fighting). Now to go back to trying to be the fluffer and puffer upper . . .

--

So, after my confession yesterday morning, I was so excited to suddenly hear from Kathryn (and she seems super-fun, just getting that out there).

And then . . . more crickets. I keep ping-ponging between hopeful and hopeless. But we've got 36 hours to hammer this out, so I'm not gonna give up. And if I have to pull this together with stock footage, team photos and my own narration I will. And we've got somewhere between a 20% and a 35% advantage so that's gotta count for something.

But seriously folks - stop expecting me to do your emotional labor; it's sexist and lazy. So when I ask how you want to participate, don't turn it back on me to find a role for you. I expect me to tell you how you want to participate, what're you good at? What are you comfortable with? HOW DO YOU WANT TO PARTICIPATE.

But no - I gotta make a good impression and get along and get the thing done, and these people are virtual (and virtual) strangers, so I'll do your emotional labor, but I'm gonna remember that you're making me do it (Tanner, Nick, and even you Kolby).

(I will neither confirm nor deny that this might also be the order in which I'm targeting folks should we wind up going to tribal)

--

I don't normally do these, but since i had my phone out for other reasons... get a view of my backyard, a glamour shot of my damned foot, and my rambling opinion about everything.

Tanner

I need to make my new tribe feel connected to me

Tony

We just finished the movie trailer challenge and that was a doozy. I feel like we tried our best but didn’t get the full support/assistance from the tribe. This will be our first tribal council so hopefully I’m still here to write my next confessional

Nick

I hate throwing up. It's my least favorite activity.

Eman

HAHAHAHAH!!

The best laid plans.

I was fully ready to cast a vote for either Tanner or Nick, and then Kathryn, delightful Kathryn, had to go and volunteer to get voted off.

And with regret, I'm going to accept the offer - because why waste capital (and my extra vote) trying to change a sure thing.

And even if I think Kathryn at her perceived uselessness will still be more useful than Nick or Tanner, I am not going to tell someone else they're wrong, nor am I going to have them resent me by going against their own wishes.

At least I'm still alive. With an extra vote and a 10% advantage going into the next challenge.

I'm also bizarrely optimistic about my chances of surviving on this non-participatory tribe and making the merge . . . and then who knows!

Kathryn

So, this was a chaotic time. We swapped around tribes a couple times and then got set with a "challenging challenge" with a very short time limit (ಥ⌣ಥ). I can't believe we managed to get a movie trailer made in just a couple days, and everyone actually helped out in making it! Color me surprised ( ﾟДﾟ). But I'm really happy with the tribe members I ended up with, they're all pretty awesome! ( ᐛ ) Everyone worked really hard on the trailer, and I still can't believe we had such a master of acting on our team ( Tony, you're a savant ( ˘ ³˘)♥ ). And Emily got everything so quickly edited, managing to work with the rest of us giving her clips last minute (especially me!), I think they really carried the team in this round. It was a ton of fun making the trailer, and everyone really put themselves out there. I believe I'll be the one getting voted off this round, but it's all good since I'll be moving on to greater things, like long plane rides, and babysitting. So I wish the remainders luck now while I still can! Good luck guys, you can definitely reach the final rounds! (•̀ᴗ•́)و ̑̑

Tribal

Tribal Council was non-live. Answers to questions are here:

Votes:

Kathryn: Tony (Ain’t nobody voting for Tony, so if I vote for him, he can’t possibly get voted off. I wanted to vote for myself here, but the host gods refuse me my spoils. Sorry Tony, I hope this doesn’t affect you!)

eman: Kathryn (I respect you, which makes this both hard and easy. Easy because I respect you enough to not second-guess what you've clearly communicated you want. Hard, because I respect you enough that I would've preferred to keep you around.)

Tanner: Kathryn (I’m doing this since you asked to get voted out)

Tony: Kathryn (sorry you couldn’t have stuck around longer but I respect your wishes)

Kolby: Kathryn (i actually liked you and if i got to pick, you TOTALLY wouldn’t have been the one i wanted to go but you offered yourself up and i love an easy vote. especially pre merge!)

Nick: Self-Vote

[skellebonez]

Happy Birthday Winter!

Hey @winterpower98 it's your birthday! I really hope you enjoy this, I know I had a ton of fun writing it for you! Actor AU is one of my favorite AUs you've made and coming back to play around with it again was a blast and a half!

Painter MK cackled, taking the brushes filled with bright pink paint into his fists.

“Yes, yes!” He exclaimed, brushing them against his cheeks and bringing another to run up the center of his face. “The art is-OW! OW, THE ART IS IN MY EYE!”

“Cut!” The director yelled, bringing the entire film production to a halt in an instant. “Xiaotian, what happened?”

The young actor dropped the paintbrushes into the hands of a stage worker to rushed over to help him, one hand covering his right eye as he tried to keep himself from laughing. “I think some of it splashed when I waved the brush at my face. I guess the art really IS-”

“Don’t say it,” Heshang said from the other side of the set, doing his best not to join his co-star in laughter.

“-seeping into my pores!”

The entire cast and crew groaned as Xiaotian cackled again, with a few added ows, before another stage hand came by with a bottle of water.

~3…2…1~

“Uh…” Xiaojiao pulled, attempting to pull the prop sword from above her head out of the wall only to be met with… a lot more resistance than should probably be there. “UH…? It’s stuck?”

She stood, attempting to pull it out normally only to be met with just as much resistance.

“It’s stuck!” She laughed, out, bracing a foot on the wall with no change.

“Let me try,” General Ironclad, or rather Red in the costume of General Ironclad for the episode, offered, attempting to do the same with the exact same result as his co-star. “What did you use to hold this in place? Cement!?”

“It should have only been stuck in with force!” A stage hand yelled as Xiaotian and Heshang joined in, both failing to pull the sword out from the false wall and Heshang nearly toppling over backwards with his additional costume pieces.

“Whoever stuck that in there needs to be moved to making sure the safety equipment stays connected!” Xiaotian offered, watching as even more people tried to remove the sword. “That is not coming out.”

~3…2…1~

Heshang held Mo in his arms, waltzing around the set as he waited for places to be called for with the shockingly content feline in his arms.

~3…2…1~

“You are selling beautiful vegetables today?” Pigsy said, leaning over the the display to give an awkward smile to the disguised Spider Queen.

Tang looked over the produce from where he knelt, looking back up at his companion with a concerned and confused look. “Are you… a-are-PFT-FUCK.”

Everyone on set burst into laughter as Tang did, both of his fellow actors holding back from laughing themselves.

“Why is it this line!?” Tang yelled in frustration as he continued laughing. “It’s not a hard line! I wrote this line! Why do I keep laughing at the last word!?”

“Maybe if Ganglie wasn’t making goo-goo eyes at me you’d keep straight face,” Zhi-Zhu Jing managed to get out through her laughter.

“That’d be the only thing straight about me.”

~3…2…1~

Dicky Cheung, or the actual Sun Wukong disguised as a human actor in full costume of himself, took a running leap and jumped onto the counter of Pigsy’s noodles, sliding to a perfect stop with a wink toward the camera.

~3…2…1~

“MK, there’s something I wanted to tell you…” Mei said, looking at MK with sparkles in her eyes before snickering. “Stop looking at me like that, it’s hard enough to keep a straight face during this scene!”

“Sorry!” Xiaotian yelled to the camera. “I can’t help it! How are Jin and Yin this wrong about these two in the show?”

“Himbos!” was the shouted answer from Tang at the other end of the set.

~3…2…1~

“One of the rare talents that no one knew the great Sun Wukong possessed…” Xiaojiao said ominously, camera panning over to Mr. Cheung in full costume. “Surprisingly good peach juggling!”

“Gotta keep myself occupied somehow!” The actor laughed out, catching two peaches in either hand while the last one was caught perfectly in his mouth to the applause of everyone watching.

~3…2…1~

“Thanks for the Key los-AH!”

Red flung his arms wildly, key flying into the air as Tie Shan rushed forward and caught him just before he face planted into the ground.

“Mine!” Mr. Cheung yelled as he caught the key mid air and rushed through the frame.

“YOU’RE NOT EVEN IN THIS EPISODE!”

~3…2…1~

“Thank you… for giving me all o-ooh, whoa!” Lui Er Mihou, or unbeknownst to nearly all Six-Eared Macaque in disguise much the same way as Sun Wukong was, yelped as the cable that was supposed to gently raise him and make him look like he was floating yoinked him as good 4 feet off the ground way too fast. “That’s too much power!”

“SORRY!” The line operator shouted, fiddling with the controls. “Someone loaded the weight setting for Xiaotian into your line instead of yours.”

“I already feel bad enough treating him like garbage and beating him up in this role, this is just rubbing salt in the wound,” Liu Er muttered, leaning back and swinging limply much to the amusement of everyone who couldn’t hear him before raising his voice. “When will my beloved friend Sun Wukong come to rescue me?”

“SPEAK MY NAME AND I SHALL APPEAR!”

Liu Er yelped in surprise as Mr. Cheung rushed in and grabbed him from beneath to hold him bridal style with a shit eating grin. He couldn't help the flush on his cheeks in response.

“HOW DO YOU KEEP SHOWING UP IN SHOTS WHEN YOU AREN’T SUPPOSED TO BE THERE YET!?” The director yelled with more than a little amusement in his voice despite the disruption.

~3…2…1~

“You!” DBK said, rounding on Red Son. “You have brought me nothing but failure! Time and time again! I keep telling you I… shit, I can’t remember the next line when you look that sad, I am so sorry.”

“Nothing but disappointment?” Red offered helpfully, immediately breaking out of his downcast somber gaze to the floor with a wide smile.

“It is scary how fast you get in and out of character sometimes, kid,” Niu Mowang laughed out, clearly resisting the urge to ruffle the younger actor’s hair lest he ruin the styling job that took far too long every time they got dressed.

~3…2…1~

The White Bone Spirit stood at the entrance to the Silken Web Cave, looking at the camera before far too much time passed from when she was supposed to say he line. She moon walked backwards out of the frame without changing her expression one bit as the other actors devolved into cackles.

~3…2…1~

“The Year of the Spider starts tonight!” Spider Queen proclaimed from her high vantage point before she muttered something under her breathe, narrowing her gaze and then looking off to the side. “Or next year ‘cause I don’t remember my line.”

~3…2…1~

Huntsman slowly lowered into frame, upside down and gripping the rigging holding him up like Spiderman.

~3…2…1~

“Oh yeah?” Sun Wukong said, appearing in frame as he walked down the wall MK was embedded in. He grabbed his staff, yanking it out of the wall and jumped down and smacked the wall with it.

… only for it to go through the wall once again and crack it. Or, rather, the false wall that was on a tilted angle to make it look like he was talking down it, rather than a heavily slanted floor.

“I’m sorry!” Mr. Cheung yelled, looking at the damage he caused. “I must have hit at weak spot!”

He hoped no one noticed that when MK offered to get the prop staff for this shot and put it into the wall… he grabbed the real one by accident.

~3…2…1~

Nui Mowang held the little bird that was Wukong’s transformation stand in for one of the final scenes, gently petting the little head with a big goofy smile on his face.

~END~

The entire cast sat around on various travel tables right outside the small Lunar New Year Festival set they had set up, various extras that had answered the open invitation for the shoot going about and getting the free food that was available at the functional stalls provided by the catering they had hired.

It was an odd sight to see Red Son and Spider Queen and Sun Wukong and everyone else sitting around together, but Liu Er Mihou being there outside of his Macaque costume broke the illusion a little bit.

It was the final day of shooting for the season 2 opening special to Monkie Kid, Revenge of the Spider Queen, and everyone was there. Even people who didn’t have to come in wanted to give a temporary farewell to Tie Shan, Nui Mowang, and Red before season 2 proper began shooting. There was still a chance they could bebcalled in for bit roles, the scripts weren’t entirely finished yet, but as far as anyone knew the Demon Bull Family wasn’t going to be returning properly any time soon.

Maybe in season 3, Tang had teased, holding the begun scripts for that in his little tablet away from prying eyes. And they were always welcome to help out in bit roles, background characters or voice over or to use their other talents to work other jobs that were needed around the set.

But even before then it would be a while.

And so that’s how Red found himself sandwiched between Long Xiaojiao and Qi Xiaotian, with the newly added member of their quartet in her full White Bone Spirit costume hanging over his shoulder to watch the compilation that Xiaojiao had expertly edited on her phone for them all.

“The director gave me permission to use whatever I wanted and I though that… maybe we could all have it for ourselves,” Xiaojiao offered, pulling up the wireless transfer option on her phone. “To watch when we miss each other being on set together. I know we’re going to probably be back together with Red Son eventually! But…”

“I’ll miss shooting with you too,” Red said smiling softly as he pulled out his own phone to accept the file. “Hopefully Mr. Tang isn’t just teasing us about season 3.”

[saturnsummer]

sunbae.

Sol meets into a familiar someone. This time, she’s not letting her chance pass again. 

ao3 link

notes: prompted by @thenerdywriter ! taking place a few years after the gang has graduated and started their jobs. it’s been such a joy writing this! (editing, grammar and other mistakes will be taken responsible by me.) if anyone else has prompts, do ask them in the submission box and i’ll get to you when i can! 

thank you @thenerdywriter​ for this!! i thought of many scenarios, like them being famous prosecutors, or getting married. but i felt that this would be an interesting twist. i hope you like it! thank you for this opportunity! 

words: 2256 words

Sol loves being a lawyer. Like, she really does.

Well, besides having to hustle in notes, write reports, follow her bosses to meetings where she just sits and listens, she loves it. 

After graduating with her grades just skimming the pass, she landed a job at a small law firm. She acts more like a secretary than a lawyer there, to be honest. But money is money. Her mother is getting older, and with Byeol expressing her interest in dancing, she couldn’t say no. 

Thus, she sucks it up and sends out other resumes. She still works part time on weekends at the book shop back in Hankuk University, so she guesses she’s managing well. She still lives in that dangerous alley, but it’s much safer now that she returns home every night. 

She tried to stay in contact with her study group. Jiho landed himself in a big law firm, and SolB (despite her mother’s wishes) is at another giant law firm. BokGi got picked up by a firm mostly doing human rights, and Yebeom is working at the company next to BokGi. (So much for besties.) Yeseul is at a small firm, doing mostly cases on women rights. 

Joon Hwi, on the other hand...

He was picked up by a law firm in the States. Immediately after graduation, he left for the States. Everyone stayed in contact, but with life catching up, weekly drinks slowed to a meeting every other month. Yeseul and Sol still meet fairly regularly, but Sol can’t help but to feel empty when she notices Joon Hwi is missing. 

Everyone feels it, but she feels it the most.

-----

Sol can’t deny her feelings. When she saw him in Professor Yang’s lecture as he picked up her highlighter and gave her a sweet smile, she felt time freeze. Later on, as they became study buddies, she couldn’t help but sneak glances to observe his face when he taught her. She would always hitch her breath whenever he would lean towards her, or tease her with that smirk.

She has always thought that he returned her feelings. The way he would walk her home some nights. How he would always send her a good morning and night text, and place cans of coffees on her table at the library. It didn’t take her long to realise that he stuck post its on her table in their third year every week. (His handwriting was too uniformed, and only he owned circular shaped ones.)

But on the day of Yeseul’s trial, Sol knew that Joon Hwi probably didn’t like her. That he wasn’t protecting her, but her roommate. Of course he would. He was offered to privately tutor her, and they were always top ranking students. She vaguely remembers international events where they both would represent Hankuk in conferences.

Sol didn’t mind it. She was never good enough for him anyways. On graduation, as they took photos and promised to keep in touch, Sol found her mouth dry when it came to Joon Hwi. She had no reason to. (After all, it was just Joon Hwi.) But she felt even more nervous than the time she took her exam.

She planned it out. She wrote a script and memorised it in her head. She wanted to let Joon Hwi know about how she felt, even if he didn’t feel the same. She wanted to thank him for being her friend, for being a support that she will always be grateful for. That wherever he goes, she will always support him in life.

But as they threw their caps in the air and took one last group photo, Joon Hwi slipped away, never to be seen in person again.

-----

Sol found out a week later about his job in the States. They kept in contact by messages and the occasional video calls with the group. But with the time difference, Joon Hwi started texting lesser. Sol was no less busier, managing Byeol and her mom’s age and slowly taking on her responsibilities as the breadwinner of the family.

She used to come home after work and sit outside at the wall, wondering if Joon Hwi could see her in the States at night from the security camera. She would put on her headphones and sit there, watching as people pass late at night. Sometimes, she would speak aloud, as if Joon Hwi could hear her through the camera.

Many days, she would sit outside with a bottle of soju and two cups. She would only drink from one, and the other would just be there as reminder of her good days, when she was a study and drunk regularly with her best confidante. She often ended those nights half-drunk, murmuring her troubles out loud. (As if Joon Hwi was there to listen.)

When Yebeom spilled the beans that Jiho and SolB were dating a year later, she couldn’t believe it. It was a total twist. Does Joon Hwi know? He must be hurt, she thinks. She wanted to text him, call even. But she decided against it. He’s probably too busy for her. 

And so Sol went about her mundane routine. She drank with an extra soju cup alone. Used circular post its. Ate ramyeon like her life depended on it.

And it went on.

-----

“Yah, kid!” Gollum smacks Sol’s arm with a freshly printed set of notes.

“You really had to?!” Sol barks back, soothing her arm and organising the copy room.

“When are you gonna stop working? You’re an adult! You’ve got your degree!” Gollum asks, shoving another stack of papers in the copier machine. Sol sighs.

“Till I get out of this job and move on to a better one. God, I’m still pathetic, aren’t I?” She cries out as she carries a stack of books to the door.

“When were you ever pathetic?” A gentle voice rings as Sol stops dead in her tracks. That voice. The voice that she can’t help but miss. The voice that lectured to her about law and her health every other day. Raising her eyes, she meets his familiar handsome face with his hair pushed back out of the way, different from the bangs he once had in school. His brown eyes crinkle. 

“Joon…?” She asks breathlessly, still taking in his presence.

“Hello, sunbae.” He smirks. The same exact smirk she still remembers. Sol drops her stack of books to the table nearby and without warning, throws her arms around his neck. He stumbles backwards, but his hands rest gently on her waist, hugging the shorter woman closer to him. She inhaled his musky cologne, feeling his warmth wrap her body.

“I… I don’t get how you’re here. Aren’t you in the States?” She says softly, pulling away from the hug.

“Well, I was. I just got back.” He tells her. Peeking his head over, he waved to Gollum.

“Long time no see, Gollum! Mind you dismiss your staff early?” He cheekily asks, earning a swat from Sol. Gollum, to Sol’s surprise, nods and waves them away. Joon Hwi grins and takes her hand into his and grabs her purse in another before leading her out of school. (Gollum, meanwhile only grins. They better get together this time round, he thinks.)

-----

Joon gives her time to catch up with him and they take a stroll to the park nearby. He shares about his adventures in the States and the different cases he’s gotten. Some difficult, some interesting.

“So, what’s been going on?” Joon asks Sol.

Sol begins retelling about how the group has been doing. She retells BokGi’s and Yebeom’s offer and how they have lunch every other day. How Yeseul decided to want to fend for women abuse victims as well. However, she leaves Jiho and SolB dating for the last.

“Oh, um… I’m not sure if SolB has told you, but…” Sol trails off. Joon Hwi only tilts his head in confusion. Her eyes are uncertain and almost awkward.

“…That her and Jiho are dating?” Joon Hwi completes the sentence for her with enthusiasm.

“Wait, how did you know?”

“Jiho told me. Well, I encouraged Jiho.” He says, leaning back on the benches they sat on.

Now Sol was confused. Didn’t he like SolB? Why on earth is he encouraging Jiho? Her face contorts into a stage of loss and confusion. Joon Hwi only lets out a light chuckle.

“I don’t like SolB. I never did.” He answers her, as if he could hear her thoughts.

Sol freezes. So for years… he never had feelings for her? She feels like she’s back in law school, sitting with him in the empty study room when he leans in closer to look at her notes, closing the distance between. Her heart beats fast and she feels a sense of warmth rising to her face.

“Why? You thought I liked her, didn’t you?” Joon Hwi teases. She turns her face away, knowing that he can see her face blushing red.

“Whatever.” She grumbles just loud enough. Laughter fills her ears as she turns back around to pout at him. Soon enough, she’s suppressing a small smile as they lie back and look in the distance to their alma mater.

Sol sits in her thoughts for a few moments. She now knows that Joon Hwi doesn’t like her ex-roommate. He’s right next to her. He’s in Korea. He still remembers her. He still cares. 

But does he feel the same?

“Come, it’s getting late.” He says, taking her hand in his and pulling her up. 

Sol doesn’t notice the way his fingers are intertwined with hers. 

-----

Joon Hwi leads her down a familiar road, before getting three popsicles. Sol knows this road like routine, and can walk it blindfolded. But she lets him lead her. The entire time, she takes in his tall figure. His broad shoulders. How so many years later, she’s still in love with this very man. No matter how many men tried to flirt and confessed to her, she couldn’t return her feelings.

Because Han Joon Hwi had stolen hers to begin with. 

“Is Byeol home?” Joon Hwi asks, as they stop at her front door. As if on cue, a much taller girl emerges from the door, dressed in a simple shirt and shorts, hair pulled back with a large clip. 

“Oppa!” Byeol’s face lights up as Joon Hwi slightly bends to give her a warm hug. Byeol crashes into his arms and Joon Hwi swings her in a circle as Sol just laughs at their childishness. 

“You’ve grown taller, haven’t you, you cookie? And gotten so much prettier, like your sister.” He laughs, ruffling her hair. Handling her a popsicle, she flashes a grateful smile. Sol swats his arm, trying to not burn from embarrassment. 

“Unnie is still the prettiest to you, isn’t she?” Byeol asks as she opens her popsicle. Sol swerves around and is ready to smack Byeol for spouting nonsense, but Joon Hwi only laughs and pats her head. 

“You’re right. Your unnie is still the prettiest and smartest to me.” He says, his eyes locked on Sol, his smile still sweetly there. Sol is transported back in time to when she would catch Joon Hwi stare at her while eating her pickles and only smile at her as she happily eats. The days, that she’s now certain showed that he had feelings for her. Byeol looks at her sister, eyes locked on Joon Hwi and silently retreats back home with her half eaten popsicle.

“Joon, there’s something I need to say.” Sol mutters out loud. She has to do it now. She lost her chance years ago, and she's not losing it again. 

“Me too.” Joon Hwi says, his hands burying into his pockets, the way it does when he’s nervous. 

“No, please. I’ve waited years to tell you this. And I don’t want to screw this up because I know you probably think I’m still hung over old memories. And I don’t know when you are going to return to the States, cause I may never see you again. And then I’m gonna-” Sol is rambling as she feels the same nervousness every time she’s alone with him. 

But Joon Hwi’s lips cut her off. His hands cup her cheeks as he brings her face nearer to him, feeling her soft lips on his. Sol is too shocked to react, but she kisses him back, her hands by her side unclenching from her balled up fists. They pull away, as Joon Hwi leans his forehead against hers. Their noses brush each other and their lips brush one another. 

“I love you, Han Joon Hwi. I have been, for the past years.” Sol whispers breathlessly.

“I know. And I love you too, Kang Sol.” He replies, before crashing against her lips once more. Sol feels the fireworks, as she finally feels her heart open.

Han Joon Hwi is here.

Han Joon Hwi loves her. 

-----

Joon Hwi leaves for the States a week later. A month later, he appears at Sol’s house, announcing that he will be shifting back home. He reconnects with everyone else in the group and the meetings become more frequent. Sol now drinks with another cup, filled by the person she loves. Instead of circular post its, she gets morning love messages. 

And at dinners, when she leans her head against Joon Hwi’s shoulder and looks at her intertwined fingers, she can’t help but feel her heart explode in so many emotions. 

She’s finally whole.

[wizkiddx]

heyheyhey idk if u do req but love your dad tom stuff! PLZ PLZ do tom helping his kids with homework but cant do it and reader has to help and its all fluffy 😩💕

ye im down to do req and this had me going completely ott cos its v cute (and a lot less angsty than what ive written recently aha) so apologies for my ramblings:

Summary: tom has the kids for a day and maths homework throws a spanner in the works - tomhollandxreader

implied smut + v slight reference to porn but basically just fluff I promise xox

\\\\\\\\\\\\///////////

Tom had dealt with a lot of whining today. Nova and Leo were the absolute joys of his life, there was no doubt about it. Of course, he also loved you a hell of a lot too - sometimes to his detriment though, hence the position he was in now. 

You’d had a busy week at work and he had been away for the first half of it - leaving you as an almost single mother to a 5 and a 7 year old. So completely fairly, you’d asked if he wouldn’t mind watching the kids for a the day on Sunday, allowing you to go to a friends baby shower. There was no answer but to agree, Tom loved quality time with the kids and he wanted you to kick back and relax with you friends too. 

However the afternoon had not been nearly as idealistic as it were supposed to be in his head. You had left him only one real job (apart from the unavoidable essentials of keeping the kids alive with food and water, something you’d hope he need not be reminded about now). Really it shouldn’t of been that hard, it was just each kid had two pieces of homework. After convincing and cajoling the kids into sitting at the table which he’d already set up with Nova’s ‘Liverpool FC’ and Leo’s ‘captain marvels’ pencil case, the English was easy. 

In fact 5 year old Leo took great joy out of writing a poem with his Dad, which basically involved trying to rhyme any word with another - especially when he tried to convince Tom that all his completely fictitious words were real and worked together. A personal favourite had been ‘snakes’ and ‘palakes’ which Leo was convinced meant pancakes - arguing so vehemently Tom almost started to doubt himself on basic English. 

Thankfully though his eldest and most sensibly child eventually took him out his misery. If anyone had any control over the Holland boys, Leo and Tom - it was the Holland girls. You and Nova had both boys completely under you spell, often taking advantage of the fact too. It was only when Nova got bored of hearing Tom and Leo mock arguing, interspersed with the little boys giggles that Tom tried his absolute hardest to keep a straight face at, that she swooped in.

“Stop being silly Leo, mummy told you he’s not good at school!” She looked oh so innocent, eyes immediately flicking down to continue the little short story she was happily going on with. In response  Tom scowled, knowing your highly curious and intelligent daughter had asked you (for one reason or another) why he was not so academic. Yet instead of Leo bursting out laughing, instead he just nodded and accepted it too - making Tom scowl even more. Not even Leo thought it was a joke. 

So apart from his children apparently taking pity on his simple mind, it was all going smoothly. Perhaps, due to the thankful fact your children had inherited their brains from their mother - something Tom was forever thankful for, until he was shamed for his substandard intellect in the family. Then again though, he was Spiderman. So take that. 

Until Nova brought out her maths sheet. Then the afternoon quickly descended into chaos. It was fractions, something she hadn’t quite grasped from school yet - a concept that still hurt her head somewhat. Normally though it’d be fine, she’d bring the sheet to you and the two of you used ‘ girl power’ to figure it out… you prior experience as a tutor while in uni helping you know how to break through to her. 

Unfortunately Tom didn’t share this same experience. Nor did Tom share a maths qualification… something that had evaded him completely during his schooling career. Of course, it had never been a particular issue, acting didn’t require the use of maths and algebra and Tom was in a very lucky position of being able to pay someone to manage his finances from a very young age. So no, dividing 2/3 and 3/7 didn’t come the most naturally to him. Or at all to be quite honest. 

“I CANT DO IT AND GRACE IN MY CLASS COULD!” For context, Grace was one of her school friends, who forever liked to compare herself to the young Holland - especially because she was normally ahead. Nova had gone from quiet frustration, staring at the questions with her tongue sticking out slightly, to one of pure rage - yelling at her dad with tears in her eyes. Nova was normally incredibly intuitive, she always found it difficult when she couldn’t do something. Now, with a ‘teacher’ who was more useless than her - the frustrations inevitably bubbled over. 

“Hey, we can work it out, just calm-“

“YOU CANT DO IT EITHER YOUR STUPID “ She was just young and frustrated, Tom tried not to take it personally but … it wasn’t always easy. Chiefly because this was the height of offensive statement Nova knew - this was her version of adult explicit language. 

“Nova you can’t be rude.” He used his stern voice, something Tom very rarely used with his little girl. Though he never wanted to upset her, neither did he want her to think it was ever okay to be so rude to anyone like that- no matter how crappy at maths they were. It hurt him to do so but it was necessary - life lessons about the importance of being kind needed to be learnt. And it worked… if what Tom was aiming for was his beautiful baby girl’s eyes to brim with sparkling tears, her bottom lip quivering slightly. 

Instantly Tom’s eyebrows drooped, trying to fight his natural reaction to scoop her onto his knee and reassure her everything was okay. But as you had lectured him many a time before, he had to put his foot down once in a while. So instead, the father and daughter were locked in a silence and intense eye contact, until Nova hesitantly began to speak. 

“I’m sorry Daddy.” During which, Nova shoved her chair back, making it screech against the tiled floors uglily before running off up the stairs. Tom knew she was crying a lot. Knew this was going to take a bit of fixing. 

With a sigh of his daughters name, Tom popped his head into the living to check on Leo who had already finished all his stuff. Seeing him completely zombified in front of ‘paw patrol’ on TV, Tom trudged up the stairs. He knew where she was, when Nova was upset she always hid in the corner of her wardrobe and cried in the darkness. So after steadying himself with a little internal monologue of how to approach the situation Tom walked in and sat down beside the wardrobe - knocking on the door slightly. 

“Nova… can we talk please?” All he heard was sniffing echoing from the wooden chamber until she tried to shout through the door.

“Go-go… go away daddy.” It broke his heart, the way her voice wavered, making Tom pout - gently letting his head fall against the wardrobe doors. 

“I don’t want you to be upset beautiful…. And you did apologise which I appreciate. You know why Daddy got angry right?” Her sniffles heightened before she muttered a quiet ‘yes’. “And you are sorry? Because that might’ve made me really sad too.”

“I’m s-s-sorry, I didn’t mean it.”

“Then that’s good and we don’t need to cry. You want a cuddle little one?” Before Tom could even properly get up the door was being pushed open by her little hands, revealing a tear stained face and big glassy eyes looking up at her Dad. Swiftly Tom scooped her up and out of the cupboard, whispering to her while she buried her face in his chest. 

“Oh come here my little bean.”

//////////////////////

When you came home late that evening, only mildly exhausted from spending the whole day gossiping with your girls, it was weirdly quiet. All the lights were out in the front room, which made you close the door gently, thinking Tom had managed to exhaust the kids - and himself in the process. With a relieved sigh at the peace you pattered into the kitchen to get yourself a drink (it had been a little concern that Tom would’ve worked the kids into a hyperactive and delerious state that kept them up long past bedtime - which ultimately you’d have to deal with). The house was remarkably silent and though it was clear from the littered toys everywhere that it had indeed been Tom alone in charge, everything seemed pretty okay. 

It was only as you were about to head upstairs to join your hubby in bed that you realised the study light was still on, streaming through the small crack in the doorframe. Assuming Tom had just neglected to turn it off, in otherwords Tom being Tom, you nudged it open with your hand. Surprisingly though, there was your husband, hunched over the desk, looking almost angrily focused - between the computer screen and a piece of paper below him. Normally you would’ve just assumed it was another script sent over or an edit Harry had sent of another screenplay they were writing together. 

But no, the blatant red flag was the screen that you could see. A screen on YouTube, of a man pointing at a whiteboard of fractions. 

So with a soft wrist you wrapped your knuckled on the side of the door, even if you had technically already entered the room. The reaction had you stifling a laugh, it was as if you’d caught him watching something *less PG* the way he jumped out his seat, closing the browser immediately. 

“Love!! I -er … didn’t know you’d got back?”

“I just did.” You smiled gently, while walking into stand behind his chair, wrapping your arms round his neck and pressing a kiss to his jaw. “Soooo…. what’ca doingggg” The glee in your voice was evident, making Tom groan and shut his eyes. 

“I hate you, you know that right?” 

“No you don’t… but you were watching a primary school video on fractions, if I’m not so mistaken?” He sighed deeply, making a point of turning the paper with his scribbles over to obscure it. 

“Nova’s homework.. she couldn’t do it and neither could I, so then she basically screamed at me for being thick and udseless and then had a breakdown.” 

Now you felt guilty. This was a bit of a sore spot with Tom, he always for some reason felt inferior because of his academic ability. Which was stupid- mainly because he was the most clever and talented man you’d ever met. Just…. Just not at fraction. 

“Oh T… you could’ve just left it for me to do with her, I don’t mind.”

“That’s not the point Y/n.” He snapped a little, shrugging your arms off him and spinning in the chair so he could face you. “She’s my daughter and I should be able to help her! It’s not like it’s that hard, it’s just I’m unbelievable thick.”

“Tom stop. Look - you can do this I assure you, it’s just been a long old time ‘kay? Your rusty and that’s only natural.”

“I really don’t think I could ev-“

“Can I teach you? It’s just the method and then I promise you’ll get it.”

It took a bit of persuasion but eventually Tom agreed, letting you pull the corner chair forward to beside his desk so you could demonstrate it to him. To be fair, he really could do it- just a bit of familiarising on the ‘stick-change-flip’ method. The way the lightbulb moment literally caused his face to light up; scurrying to do the question for himself, tongue sticking out in the process; then presenting it to you proudly - well it had you melting in your seat. 

“See! That took all of 5 minutes and you got it.” You elbowed  his side by leaning forward in the chair, which instead of letting go, Tom reached and caught, before pulling you up and round. You landed with you bum perched on the edge of the mahogany desk, Tom now stood up- his legs in-between your parted thighs - your feet hooking round the back of knees. 

“It’s all down to my incredibly talented teacher.”

“No…. No I really don’t think it is” You mused with a soft voice, fingers instinctively going to the nape of his neck - twirling the little curls round your fingertips. 

“Well even so… I think I could teach you a thing or two too.” Never one to mull on anything, Tom’s tone had immediately switched to something a lot more… mischievous. 

“Not even going to ask about my day? Wheres the chat mr smooth?” He had to repress the grin at your smirk because as much as you infuriated the hell out of him - you also had this weird ability of making him feel so entranced and helpless. He relented with a sarcastic chime.

“Fine, how was your day love.”

“Good…. but I have a feeling you’re about to make it a whole lot better.”

That was all the signals he needed to lean forward, in doing so forcing you back until your back landed completely on the cool wood. His lips feathered yours, both hands pinned either side of your head.

“Oh darling… you have no idea.”

[fy-2pm]

[Interview] 2PM's Taecyeon 1st Look Magazine

In "Vincenzo", going back and forth as the foolish intern lawyer and the cold-blooded sociopath, Ok Taecyeon has added tension. Another side of him begins.

Q: It has been approximately one year since your last acting piece and you're back with the drama <VINCENZO>. Did you watch the first episode?

T: Of course, I really enjoyed watching it. Actually, I don't know much about the part without my appearance until I watched it on TV. So, it's like something new to me. Watching the first episode, I realized I am in a project that's much bigger than I thought.

Q: What's your reaction?

T: Overall, it was fun. However, there were many scenes with the comical elements came out stronger than I thought. As this is the work from scriptwriter, Park Jae-Beom, I expected some comical elements to some extent but most of them, I didn't even think about it.

Q: Like you said, scriptwriter Park Jae-Beom is someone who will address the social issues in a comical way. What's it like to work with him?

T: While I was reading the script, I thought the writer has something he wanted to say. He wanted to bring out social criticism through his piece of work. Actually, the black comedy genre needs to be more comical so that it won't be too heavily weighted. It's not easy. The scriptwriter managed to solve this without placing too much weight on this. Personally, I am very impress.

Q: At the drama press conference, Director Kim Hee Won told us that she worked very hard on each character to the extent that it took her 6 months to do casting. Why do you think Ok Taecyeon became Jang Jun Woo?

T: I think the biggest reason is my good health. From Director Kim's perspective, bright and healthy image matches with Junwoo's character. She said I should be able to explore and express this character well.

Q: Actually, I thought Jang Junwoo would be very different to the Ok Taecyeon that we know for a long time.

T: When I first received the script, I thought, "Should I be doing this?" because Jang Junwoo and I have a lot in common. The very first scene for Junwoo is riding an electric scooter, which made me feel if someone is hiding a camera to film my real life. I like to ride it all the time (laugh). However, as the story unfolds, it is more than just Junwoo's foolish out look. I'm going to show a different side of me, so I am paying a lot of attention in my acting.

Q: With a different side, what would that be?

T: I think Jang Junwoo is someone with many sides and shadings. It's character that goes back and forth between cold and hot bath. I keep thinking, "Can I express it like this?" I am thinking into each and single details. Personally, I have never acted like this before, so I'm expressing it in various different ways under the directions from the director. Viewers will be able to see this, I wonder how they will accept it.

Q: Personally, I think your "Tikitaka" with senior lawyer played by Jeon Yeo Bin was impressive. I'm looking forward to see the chemistry between you two. (T/N: "Tikitaka" means "the situation whereby someone does something and the other supports with efficient responses")

T: Actually I tried to get to know each other better. She's an actress who receives well and so, we are in sync when say our script lines.

Q: Jang Junwoo is an intern who just took his first step into the society. What was Ok Taecyeon like when he first started? Let's talk about the old days.

T: When I first started working... It was already 15 years ago (laugh). Back then, to me, everything was fun. The very first time I earned my own money was when I did some modelling. At that time, I didn't have a manager, so I took the bus with heavy stage makeup. I also went to practice just like that. However, everything was really fun. At that time, my parents were in the US and I came back to Korea alone. One of the fun things is to tell them each and everything I did for work.

Q: <VINCENZO> will be meeting global viewers via Netflix. Will the global viewers be able to relate to the story?

T: For sure, I don't think there's anything you can relate to it. This is because it is a black comedy where they are pointing out the current problems in Korean society. However, if you look at it at a wider scope, the definition of a dark hero is the same in any society. Viewers with their conventional thoughts and curiosity will have questions as to why things are not resolved by the law. I think this is where <VINCENZO> will attract the global viewers.

Q: You have been an actor for more than 10 years. When was the first time, you are convinced about this?

T: I think it was at the time when I was filming the drama <WONDERFUL DAYS>. One day after shooting a scene, the writer praised me for doing well. While I was filming, I thought, "Am I doing it okay?". I didn't know I would get a good compliment. After the filming, I was able to feel the relief of my nervousness, which I have never felt before. For the first time, I thought, "Is this the charm of acting?"

Q: When you first dream of becoming an actor to now, is there any difference?

T: Well, I think we should use the expression "When I first started" rather than "When I first dreamed" about it. I think I really started not knowing what was really going on. With the thought that I am working with nice people, every time I go to work, I will think about how I can contribute to make it interesting and fun in the filming. I thought about how I can express more. I think it's about time for me to think about how to make my characters look new.

Q: Actually, there is no right or wrong answer for acting. Sometimes, there are different opinions but what kind of choices do you have to make?

T: Personally, I will analyze the characters and prepare a lot of things. Sometimes, I will approach the director. Times like that, I will follow the director's instructions. Of course, there are also times when I have my own thoughts. However, no matter how I act, it doesn't mean much if it gets edited out later. I came across an actor who doesn't look at his acting at all on the monitor. If he sees his own acting, he would be forcing his acting without realizing it. So when he the director says it's okay, he is okay with it, too. After hearing that, I thought that was right too.

Q: What attracts you when you look at a piece of work?

T: Personally, I think how the story flows is important. Next is, what can I show with this character? I will look into it.

Q: What's the joy living as an actor?

T: While you get to play different characters every time, you can also break down people's prejudice. I think this is the part with the most fun. So I think it's important to take on new challenges with something new. I am always thinking how to keep people's attentions and to what extend people can take when I do something outrageous.

Q: If so, what does actor Ok Taecyeon want to show with his acting?

T: Honestly, instead of showing a completely different side of me, I am trying to focus on what I already have and I'll increase all aspects little by little. I was watching my acting to look for the character's flow and what the character is missing all at once. I'm trying to do that (laugh).

Q: By the way, at the end of last year, 2PM announced their group comeback at a live. How's the preparation going?

T: We're preparing but I'm not sure if we can make a comeback this year (laugh). We are planning but there are situations overlapping so we need to organize that.

Q: Since 2016, it's been 5 years since your last group album. Personally, anything you want to show us?

T: As all our members are composing songs, we all have different ideas. Like what music to use as our title song? We cannot make a start unless we find our direction. Actually, once the title song is decided, it will progress from then on, but members haven't come to a decision yet. Recently, our first round of gathering failed (laugh).

Q: Define Ok Taecyeon in a few words. What words are appropriate?

T: A lot of people said the words "healthy" or "vitamin C" (laugh). Personally, I like all of them. However, if I put them all together, I hope I can become the "Happy Virus." Doesn't matter where I go, I want to give happiness to many people. As a singer who is acting, if you watch me act and you can feel the comfort and happiness from my heart that would be great.

Q: I think you have achieved this. Everyone in the site here today is happy. Thanks to Taecyeon.

T: Really? Then, that's all. What. Hahaha...

Trans @JLML718

[silverwhiteraven]

Wings of Broken White - Ch.8

Tag List: @marichatmay

[ Posted on Ao3 ] [ Chapter 1 ] [ Chapter 7 ] [ Chapter 9 ]

Marinette and Chat Blanc continued to see each other sporadically after their midnight meeting full of emotional rollercoastering and winged secrets. He had told Ladybug about it a few days after, leaving out the part about Marinette’s revealing of having wings. It made her heart skip to know that he would keep a secret that wasn’t his to tell even if he didn’t have to. Ladybug thanked him for being honest with her and told him to be careful, but she was happy he got the chance to spread his wings around another friend.

Ladybug also offered to increase their patrols together if he ever wanted to practice flying with her. She even teasingly said something along the lines of them both needing the benefit of practicing with each other, just in case they ever had to have each other’s backs during a fight in the skies. He accepted, looking giddy to get even more opportunities to fly with another. She also found it unfairly adorable when he joked that he wouldn't get jealous if she wanted to fly around with one of her own civilian friends.

The two even thought about the possibility of some day both flying with their civilian friends together. Ladybug had to hide her giggle at the thought that she might have to break the news that Ladybug and Marinette could never fly together, if this proposed group flight practice were to ever take place.

But Ladybug did confess to Chat Blanc, that if she were to ever choose a civilian to fly with, it would be either Nino Lahiffe or Alya Césaire, because if there was anyone besides Marinette Dupain-Cheng that was trustable, it had to be the people Marinette herself trusted most. Chat hardly held back on his approval of the choices, and it made her laugh to see his bright antics.

After that, several more months passed by the duo, and the world. School was nearing the end of another year. Akuma’s were just as rare and random as ever. Best of all, Chloé had continued to be reprimanded by an ever vigilant Adrien. She was starting to almost mellow out as the fact slowly sunk in that someone she cared about and who cared about her, too, was actually willing to go against her, and even leave her, because she was in the wrong.

All of this led up to an end of school project for their class.

The students were to work together in equal shares to put on a play, telling either one of the fairy tale stories they had studied in class, or one they made up on their own. Nino had proposed that they make a short movie out of the project so that the fruit of their joint efforts could be shared outside of class. The teacher thought the idea was brilliant, and gave them extra time and afterschool privileges to help them set up.

Marinette had been a little tired the day the class was assigning the roles. Her mind only half paid attention, causing her replies to be badly timed and delayed. Because of it, an interesting selection of character parts were assigned.

“Now, I know we’ve been delaying assigning the lead roles,” Nini spoke from where he stood at the front of the room, acting as one of the movie’s directors, “ but I wanted to make sure everyone knew what the other options were before a bunch of people tried to jump at being the Knight of the Princess. So let’s start. Any volunteers or votes for the Knight’s Princess?”

There was various various calls of names and a few ‘me!’s, and most of it all went over Marinette’s head. The only part that really registered was ‘votes for the Knight’, so Marinette half-heartedly pipped in, “Adrien could do it.”

The room went quiet and all eyes turned to her like she had just declared herself to be an Akuma or something. She blinked, wondering what she said.

Nino was the one to break the silence with a crooked and amused smile. “Marinette, you want Adrien to be the Princess?”

She gaped like a fish, realizing she had heard his earlier question completely and utterly wrong. She waved her arms around and she stuttered, trying, and failing, to clear away her mistake. She froze when Adrien burst out laughing, clearly not offended or even upset.

“Why not?” Adrien chuckled as he calmed. “Not the first time I’ve been told I’m pretty enough to be royalty. It would be a nice break from the cool-guy look I’ve been doing at photoshoots lately, too.”

The room started to buzz again with noise. It seemed everyone was considering it, liking the idea of breaking away from assigning a girl to be the Princess.

Alya pipped up above the others mischievously. “So if Adrien get’s to be the Princess, who’s taking the role of Knight? Another of the boys, or one of the girls? At this point, anyone can take the spot since we’ve decided to ignore traditional gender roles. Any volunteers?”

There was more discussion filling the room at that declaration, and a few people glanced at Chloé. She had probably been gunning for the role of Princess, but now she seemed to be pouting. “If Adrien is taking the lead role, then I still want a good one. But I refuse to be a smelly Knight! I’d rather be the King.” She stated decidedly, and the class chuckled and murmured their acceptance of her decision. They were happy to have her not throwing a fuss. It was rather refreshing, actually, to see her still being dramatic but cooperative with the class.

Murmurs continued as the class discussed the role of Knight. Marinette stayed out of it, too embarrassed that she might mess up again. It wasn’t long before Adrien hummed to himself and turned to her.

“Marinette? Would you like to be the Knight to my Princess?” She squeaked at the sudden proposal, and the class hushed. Adrien turned to the others, a small but confident smile on his lips. “She’s helped all of us in Akuma attacks before, right? Marinette acts the part of a Knight saving dames and damsels in distress naturally. I think she could do this, if she wants to, that is,” he adds with a reassuring glance. There wasa round of agreements from the others, before all eyes turned to her, breaths held in anticipation of her answer.

Retreating into the neckline of her oversized shirt to hide a fluster, she nodded her acceptance. There were a few excited woops, and Kim even whistled.

After that, all the roles and assignments for the project were set.

Marinette and Adrien were to be Knight and Princess. Chloé and Juleka took to the King and Queen. Kim and Ivan claimed a joint role of the Dragon for themselves. Rose volunteered to be the Evil Sorceress. Mylène wanted the role as the Knight’s Fairy Guide. Alix was to make props and set backgrounds in the art room. Nathaniel and Alya were the script-writers for the story. Max and Nino were on camera duty with the help of Markov. Sabrina was put in charge of coordinating, scheduling, and final edits.

Lastly, everyone was given two tasks as a group: First, if they had nothing to, they were to help their fellow classmates who were still working. And second, everyone pitches in for the costumes if they can.

Everything went surprisingly smoothly for their project once everything was divided up. Adrien got Chloé to pitch in for the costumes with him, both allowing their immense closets to be raided. Alya and Nino were able to check out cameras from the yearbook and photography clubs. Props became a group-effort when most of the class rather enjoyed, and got carried away with, the art room’s free to use supplies. Some of the musically inclined were putting together a playlist for mood and background music. Kim helped the cast members practice their lines, even standing in for a partner if someone wasn’t there.

It was fun, Marinette had to admit. Up until the inevitable hitch caught up to them, though.

The days of filming their project were upon them. The school’s courtyard had been commandeered for the majority of their sets, empty due to it being a weekend. Large green rolls of poster paper had been used like wallpaper, hung from the second floor banisters to act as a greenscreen. The stairs got covered in painted cardboard so they would look like castle walls and towers from the side.

The entrance to the school was left clear, since the class had deemed it worthy to be its own set background twice over. The first was to act as the front gate to the King and Queen’s castle for the opening scene outside. The second would be from the inside, doors closed and covered with curtains to make it look like the inside of a Great Hall. To give the makeshift Great Hall its finishing touch, Chloé had ‘borrowed’ the fancy chair from her Father’s office to act as a throne.

All in all, things went great. The story and filming opened with the Knight, Marinette, decked out in painted cardboard and foam armor, returning from a mission in another country. He was summoned by the King and Queen immediately upon arrival, to be told that the Princess, Adrien, had been cursed and kidnapped by the Evil Sorceress. To their credit, Juleka and Chloé actually did an amazing job of acting and looking like emotionally distressed parents who just lost their daughter. And when they did a flashback scene in one of the classrooms, Rose proved to be one scary Evil Sorceress with Adrien a perfect damsel in distress. They did have to redo the scene several times, though, because the Queen, Juleka, was having trouble not looking like she wished she was being kidnapped by a very pretty girl instead.

The Fairy Guide, Mylène, was then called forth to help assist the Knight in tracking down the Evil Sorceress and navigate through the Magic Woods. This part took a mix of walking along the makeshift greenscreen wall multiple times and actually going out to a few of the parks around Paris. They had to admit to themselves, though, that they mostly just wanted to run around in-costume and have fun, as well as eat a picnic that Alya’s mother and Marinette’s father had both contributed to after hearing about the project.

It was the pre-rescue battle scene that caused the hiccup. The class artists had done a too-good job on the two-person costume of their Dragon. Kim sat upon Ivan’s shoulders, allowing the Dragon to have an impressive two and a half metre height from head to ground. Kim was also very set on being very animated and expressive with the Dragon, so the mouth, full of sharp paper mache fangs, opened and closed at his command while he threw glitter out like it was fire. Ivan controlled the legs, wings, and body, which all had moving parts for mobility. The legs were strapped to his own, so they walked and stepped when he did. The wings were controlled by Ivan’s Raven wings, allowing them to move realistically. Kim, acting as the neck, would twist around, and Ivan, needing to keep balance, would follow his movements, causing the whole dragon to lumber around and sway like it was alive.

The Fairy Guide, Mylène, couldn't bring herself to face the Dragon at all, let alone appear on set with it. What really took them off guard, however, was the Akuma that came along as the class was gathered around Mylène.

[myfeetkeepdancing]

Blurred Lines  |  Tom Holland x Male!Reader

Words: 2198

Request:  hello, if the requests are open (because I really don't know where I can see that) and if it's not too much to ask, you could do one where Tom is trying to learn some lines for a movie but as he has dyslexia (something I discovered from a photo on Instagram), Tom becomes sensitive so the reader helps him with that, then Tom cries and the rest I leave it to you as you want😅

-----

With his back to the door, Tom sat behind his desk. From the doorpost, you watch dark clouds gather above him. You could sense the frustration hanging about him—his chin resting on a tightly clenched fist. Once in a while, his other hand laced through his curls. Murmuring inaudible things to himself. Gaze stuck to the pages with endless lines for his next project. The fact that Tom didn't learn his lines on the coffee table or in the corner of your big, cozy couch was a definitive red flag. Usually, he would be all around the house. Practicing his lines, sharing his thoughts. His enthusiasm dragging you into enacting his favorite scenes with you. But not this time.

You take careful steps into the room, taking a seat beside the desk. "I've made you tea." Sliding the cup slowly across the wooden surface, resting your chin on the palm of your hand, quietly observing Tom, letting your presence sink in.

"Thanks..." He mumbled with his eyes stuck to the paper. Not paying you any attention. Watching him retrace the same line over and over again with his finger. A big draw of breath moves his hunched and depressing pose. "You know…" The mutters in a downcast tone you already dread hearing. It's gut-wrenching to see Tom like this. Quiet and turned to himself. "... I'm not-" Releasing a long sigh of frustration while shaking his head. Swallowing half his sentence. As sharp as his jawline already was, it sharpened even more as his jaw clenched hard. Struggling to regain his temper. His feet tapping the floor unimpeded. With a quick turn of his head, he eyed the door you came through. Rushing from his seat to close it. Just a tad bit too harsh as it collided with the frame. The loud slam resonating through the room and into the hallway. Poor Tessa. You only manage to catch a few fleeting words as he utters something about a draft before returning to this seat. His figure more hunched and leaning into the desk.

"Tom…" You try to reach him again. "What's bothering you?" With one hand, you slowly rub his shoulder.

By now, you got to know Tom well. You have to let him fume, release his frustrations. There were never personally directed at you. But stressful times could bare down hard on him. And even Tom had his limits. His sleep became irregular, mood swings to the extreme. And self-esteem at an all-time low. Tom became sensitive to so many things. Irritated by the simplest things. Sounds, simple gusts of wind, beams of light, reflections off surfaces. Stirring your coffee with a spoon could set something off. Everything was distracting him. The only remedy was allowing him to vent.

"It's just…!" He snarls, throwing his pencil to the wall. "I can't do it!" His voice boomed. Full of rage and frustration. Slamming his fist onto the paper, as if to punish it. "The words!" Tom wheezes while his nostrils flares angrily. "I have four more days, two of which are travel." He hangs back in his chair. Raking his fingers through his curls in frustration. "And I can't get these fucking lines into my bloody brain." Knocking a few papers from the stack with an aggravated swoop of his hand. He continues to avert any sort of contact with you. Staring at the ceiling while combing his fingers through his curls. They were unkempt. Tom didn't even bother to. A mess. That's what he was. His shirt was wrinkled, litter all-around—cups and wrappers from candy. Tom's shirt hangs loosely around his frame, his shoulders hanging low.

You re-seat yourself on the chair. Allowing your eyes to run across the lines. But before you are able to utter another word, Tom's ramble continues. His emotions finally let loose because of one thing. His eyes connect with yours. You stare into his eyes for a moment. Captivated by his pain. His misery. You only respond with a small smile—a reassuring one. Words wouldn't help.

"I won't!" He yells out. "I… just, I... can't do it!" Rubbing his hands across his face, shielding them from you. His breathing is heavy as everything else turns quiet. Just the two of you. He seemed so conflicted, shaking his head. Mumbling things to himself. "Everyone expects so much from me… and -and…" His voice suddenly breaks, seeing his chest heave up and down. Slow sobs begin to rack his frame. "I… can't." Tears start to stream freely down his cheek as you take his hands away. They tremble uncontrollably. Revealing his red teared up eyes. "I can't do it (Y/N)." He said while his whole body was taken over by the shaking from his sobs.

"Poor thing." You manage to get out as lump formed in your throat. "C' mere." Pulling him towards you, taking his shaking body on your lap, as he locks his arms around you. Burying his face against the side of your neck. Slow sobs turn into long sorrowful wails. Paused by moments of him recovering his breath. "It's going to be alright." Stroking your hand along his back. "It's ok, Tom…" Whispering soothing words into his ear.

"T-The words… they j-just d-don't stick." He snickers, clinging onto you for dear life. Seeking safety and comfort. Like a terrified infant. Rocking him slowly to and through. He felt broken. All his defenses washed away into tears. And you let him weep, howling at his insecurities. It's difficult to make out words as he continues to sob in between hicked breaths. "One moment they dance, the other they make no sense." Hugging himself tightly against you. "It takes so much energy. I… I can't do it." He weeps. "I just can't…"

"That's ok." Combing his curled up locks of beautiful brown hair with your fingers. You press a gentle kiss behind his ear. Tom was all warm to the touch, your shirt all wet and moist from his tears. The sobs trembling his frame to his very core. "Hey…" You whisper. "Listen…" Trying to get his attention as he slowly begins to calm down. Pushing the strands of brown curled hair from his forehead. Planting a kiss there. "Let's take a break." Lifting his face by his chin. Tom's gaze full of sorrow and misery. "Clear your mind. Find some fresh motivation, renew your energy, and start over."

"But, there's simply no time." No more tears came, but his lip jutted out, trembling.

"I'm here for you, Tom." Stroking your hand through his luscious curls. Feeling his breathing slow down. The tension in his frame subsiding. "I'm going to help."

"B-But... how?" Rubbing his nose with the back of his hand, being all runny. "I… don't know how."

"Hop in the gym. Release your frustration." You give him a reassuring smile, pressing your lips on his. "It'll help."

"Are you sure…?" Looking at you with big sad puppy eyes. "Don't you hate working out…?"

"I'm not going to." You chuckle. "You some time alone. I'll be here. I'll help you."

For a while, he said nothing, rising to his feet, standing there, digesting the information. His head hanging low. Gaze plastered to the floor. The exhaustion evident on him, as he weighed up the words. He looked hollowed out. "Ok…" He nodded, followed by a long weary sigh. Dragging his feet across the floor. With that, he disappears from the room. You turn your attention to his script. Highlighting his lines, putting on straps of paper, and more. It pained you to see Tom like this. But this time, you were prepared. Moments later, you hear the sound of progress. Sporting equipment being used vigorously, a boxing ball getting punished, and heavy weights slamming up and down.

"Babe!" Tom rounds the corner into the living room. Eyes glued to his script. "How'd… you-?" Reading through the many edited pages. "This is amazing!" To your relief, you see that cute smile returning to his features. Tom finally being himself again. Outgoing and joyful.

"Once you feel like it, let me hear your lines." You say with a growing smile. His happy response made the whole place light up again. The darkened mood finally gone from the air. "I've got plenty of space on this couch." Giving him a wink while opening a spot for him. The L shaped couch had this perfect spot in the corner. Cushions and blankets, space to stretch your legs. From day one, it's been a battle who sat there first.

"You're a lifesaver, you know that?" Jumping on the couch, thanking you with a long deep kiss. Before curling into your embrace between the blankets and cushions. His back snuggled up tight against your chest, allowing you to put an arm around his torso. "How did you figure this out?" He asks, pulling the blankets back into position.

"I knew it hindered you. I've seen you struggle before. But I wasn't aware how much more it affected you on set."

"I'm not proud of it." He sighs. "But please understand I wasn't trying to hide that from you on purpose. I... just didn't want you to worry."

"It's alright." Resting your head against his. "I'm just glad Harrison told me." Feeling all dreamy and happy Tom was himself again. "That's why I took a sort of course on it."

"Are you... for real?" He turned and raised himself on his arms, hovering mere inches away from you. A look of wonder painted across his face.

"I am, I've got the certificate lying around here somewhere." You said with a stretching smile. Actually feeling a bit proud of it. "I did because I wanted to get a better understanding of it all. The differences and variants and all that. But most importantly, how to help someone who has it. To help you. To lend you a hand. Give you tips and tricks. Because for me, it's been incredibly difficult to see you struggle. I've felt helpless for long enough."

"Darling." Tom lying on top of your chest, dragging himself upwards to kiss you. "That's incredible. But how'd you manage that besides the rest you do? You already have so little time for yourself. If you'd ask-..."

"Tom, I know you. If I'd ask you... you would have said no. I mean… you can be quite stubborn." Booping his nose with your finger. "You're a hardworking guy. You can take on the whole world if you need to. You played in the biggest movies with the greatest of actors. And turned into one. You became a role model for an entire generation. You're at the top of your career." Combing your fingers through his lovely brown curls, sighing dreamily. "And you deserve every bit of it. Yet there's so much weight on your shoulders. The eyes of the world are on you all the time. So, if there's one thing that hinders you from doing the things you love. I'll do anything to help you with that."

"Oh my God, babe..." His eyes sparkled with life, staring deep into yours with adoration, joy, and pride. You pull him closer to you. Feeling so comfortable together. Watching him, sucking on his lower lip, eyes slowly turning red, rubbing his face with one hand. Slow and steady, a small tear began to roll down his cheeks. You manage to catch it with the pad of your thumb before Tom connects his lips with yours. A passionate and loving kiss, deepening it by the grace of this hands on your cheek. "That is the sweetest thing you ever said to me." Crossing his arm on your chest, head on top, swaying with the heaves off your breathing.

"Tom, what does it say about a person, who faces his personal dilemma every single day, head-on, so he can do the thing he loves doing most?" Pressing a kiss on his forehead. "That takes guts. Determination. And a ton of it as well. I admire that in you. I really do."

"Shit..." Pushing the tears from his eyes. "I… I never knew you thought of me like that. I feel even more terrible about today. I'm so sorry." Kissing your lips in rapid succession.

"Don't stress it, we all have our off days." Pulling his soft lips back onto yours. "Even Spiderman."

"Tell me, love, what's your secret?" Snuggling closer to you. "You're always so calm. Always smiling. You radiate peace. How do you do it? It's like you don't have bad days."

"It's because of you, Tommy. I have you…"

"That leaves me with little to top that." A smile of pure joy and pride beamed onto you. "You're really special to me, you realize that?" He is cupping your cheeks with both his hands, leaning into you, and taking your lips onto his. Following into a long, tender kiss to strengthen his words. "I love you so much."

"I'll always be there for you, Tom." Feeling a small tear roll down your cheek. "Always."

The brown-eyed boy's gaze was so intense, so unbroken. Full of love. "I'll be with you." He whispers back. "Till' the very end."

[juju-on-that-yeet]

Fall From Grace

Whumptober Day 28: Such Wow. Many Normal. Very Oops. Prompt: Accidents

A careless bullet from Wilford's gun hits Yandere as he's up in the studio catwalks, and what happens next reminds Wilford too much of memories long-buried.

Warnings: Blood, violence, falling from a height, traumatic flashbacks

Read on AO3 (Full Whumptober Series)

Enjoy!

~

It’s a normal day in Wilford’s studio, though it’s not a filming day. The usual players are around; Bim and Wilford half-rehearsing, half-editing a script while the Jims scamper around in the catwalks, as they often do. This time, though, Yandere is with them, venturing through the dark space and running across beams. Wilford hasn’t heard much from the trio since they went up there aside from occasional bursts of giggles, so he suspects they’re getting along well. A nice change, as the Jims usually seem a little frightened of Yandere, for reasons Wilford can’t fathom at all. Who could be scared of his adorable, stabby little brother? Either way, the three seem to be having fun together now, which is more than could be said for Bim and Wilford. The script felt right when they first wrote it, but its chinks and mistakes are making themselves known as they rehearse it, resulting in edit after edit.

“Ugh, this blasted script!” Wilford mutters, pacing in annoyance. At some point he pulled out his gun in anger, though he’s now only using it to scratch an itch behind his ear. “I thought you knew what you were doing with this, Trimmer!”

“Hey, how is my fault!?” Bim cries, “You wrote on this as much as I did, and we’ve corrected plenty of your mistakes so far, by the way.”

“Plenty of yours, too!” Wilford insists. He waves the manuscript for emphasis. “You keep using too many words to say the simplest things! Real people don’t talk like that!”

“And you insist on paring down everything until it doesn’t make sense!” Bim retorts, “We have to give people something, or else they’ll get bored!”

“And your long-winded lines won’t bore them just as much?” Wilford scoffs, “If anyone in the room knows about entertaining, I think it’s the face of Mark’s whole channel, don’t you?”

“I look more like Mark than you ever did, you egomaniac!” Bim cries, then blinks. “That’s not the point, the point is that your lines suck and we’re gonna be fixing them all day!”

“Maybe once we fix yours!”

“Yours first, Pinky!”

The argument continues. Even Yandere and the Jims can hear them from the catwalks. The Jims are amused, Yandere is bewildered.

“Do they always argue like that?” Yandere asks, peering as far down as he can without losing his balance.

“Yep,” RJ replies, “They yell and yell, and sometimes Pink Jim fires his shooty, but they always work together later like nothing happened!”

“Huh,” Yandere muses, standing up straight again, “I can see that. Anyone else arguing with onii-san like that would’ve been shot by now.”

“PJ looks like he’s going to shoot something soon,” CJ signs, before literally pointing out the way Wilford is waving his gun around.

“Oh, maybe I spoke too soon,” Yandere says, though he seems unbothered by the prospect of Bim getting shot.

“Pink Jim never shoots Bim Jim!” RJ exclaims, then pauses. “Well, not on purpose. He’ll probably fire into the ceiling or something.”

True to form, Wilford aimlessly fires his gun right then, straight over his shoulder and into the catwalks – where it whizzes right past the group. CJ yelps and jumps, and RJ looks behind himself, searching for where the bullet went.

“That was close!” RJ says, “Right, Stabby Jim?” He gets no response, but hears a gasp from CJ. “Stabby Jim?” he repeats, turning to look at Yandere.

Yandere looks back, eyes wide, hands over his stomach, blood seeping rapidly through his fingers. He lists to the side, tries to step back to right himself. But his foot touches air, and he slides off the catwalk beam before the Jims can even reach for him.

They do anyway, though, crying out as Yandere falls straight down.

Bim and Wilford hear them, look in their direction with just enough time to see Yandere hit the ground with a thud, right on his back. He doesn’t get up.

“Oh, fuck–” gasps Bim, running past Wilford to get to Yandere. Wilford teleports instead, poofing to Yandere’s side.

“What on earth??” Wilford mutters, “Yan’s balance is better then mine–”

“Wil, he’s bleeding!” Bim shouts, kneeling down to Yandere, “When you fired your gun just now, it must’ve hit him, that must be why he fell! Oh shit, fuck, Yan, wake up–”

Yandere doesn’t. He lays motionless, eyes closed and limbs strewn like a doll aside from the one arm still laid across his bleeding stomach. Blood starts forming a pool around him. Wilford stares at Yandere, eyes getting wider by the moment as Bim frantically putters around him. He tries checking Yandere’s breathing, as much as he can without moving him.

“Oh no, Wil, I don’t think he’s breathing,” Bim gasps, looking to Wilford. “What are you waiting for, go get Doc! You can teleport faster than I can run!!”

Wilford can’t move. He can hardly think, except to remember something half-forgotten. Another body fallen from a height, another body with Wilford’s bullet in its gut. Everything feels like slow-motion, even as the pool of blood around Yandere creeps ever wider.

“It was an accident,” Wilford gasps. It’s all he can say.

Bim’s eyes widen with recognition as the Jims, having finally climbed down from the catwalk, run towards the group.

“We tried to catch him, we tried!” RJ exclaims, already in tears. CJ is crying, too.

“You can still help out,” Bim says, resolute and taking charge, “You two are the fastest runners here, go get Doc. Tell him what happened and that Yandere isn’t breathing.”

They nod before running away, so gangly it’s a wonder they don’t trip over themselves. But Bim’s right, the pair are faster runners than all but the androids. Dr. Iplier will arrive soon, but in the meantime, Yandere’s not the only one in trouble. Wilford is still frozen, still staring at Yandere with wide eyes, clouded over by the past. Ever since those videos Mark put out, all the egos have known about Wilford’s history, and Bim knows exactly what Wilford is thinking about now.

“Wilford,” Bim says, turning to his friend, “You need to get out of your own head. Where are you right now, can you tell me?”

“Was it my fault?” Wilford asks, voice small, accent nearly gone.

“No,” Bim replies immediately, “You didn’t know that would happen when you fired your gun, it was an accident.”

“An accident,” Wilford breathes, “An accident, that’s all it was…”

At that moment, Dr. Iplier comes running in, medical supplies in his arms.

“Doc!” Bim cries, relieved, “Oh thank god, where–”

“Back away!!” Dr. Iplier barks, rushing to Yandere’s side and dumping his supplies beside him. Bim scrambles away to give him space to work. “The Jims are getting Plus, I already know I’ll need his help with this.”

“Is Yandere–?” Bim asks, nervous.

Dr. Iplier checks Yandere’s pulse with two fingers on the nearest wrist, which happens to be the one covering his bloody stomach, and then leans down to listen for his breathing. After only a moment, he straightens up.

“Oh, no you don’t,” he mutters as he starts chest compressions, “I haven’t done a hundred surgeries on you just so you could fall off a catwalk and die.”

“What if his back is broken?” Bim asks, wincing at the force of Dr. Iplier’s chest compressions.

“His breathing is more important than his back right now,” Dr. Iplier answers tersely, though he does pull Yandere’s lower jaw down to give him rescue breaths instead of tipping his head back.

He does one round of compressions and rescue breathing, then two. The whole time, Bim looks on with increasing anxiety, whimpering to himself in fear. Wilford continues to stare, the only change being the tears that start rolling down his cheeks. His mind is trapped in the past, back in those hours he spent staring at a body that wouldn’t move.

Finally, in the middle of the third round of compressions, Yandere gasps awake, coughing slightly and beginning to struggle. He doesn’t seem able to speak yet, still so winded and in pain he hardly knows what’s happening around him.

“Hey, lay still, Yan,” Dr. Iplier orders, though a measure of tension has left his voice and demeanor. “You fell off the catwalk, you might have a spinal injury. Can you wiggle your fingers for me?”

Yandere does, curling them back and forth.

“Alright, how about your toes?”

It’s hard to see through Yandere’s shoes, but he does move his toes. Dr. Iplier gently puts his hand on each shoe, one at a time, to feel the toes moving underneath.

“Alright,” Dr. Iplier sighs, even more relieved than a moment ago, “You have no idea how lucky you are, kid.”

“So his spine’s okay?” Bim asks, breathless with his own relief.

“Probably,” Dr. Iplier says, “But he could still have some fractured vertebrae, so he needs to be moved very carefully. I won’t do it until Plus gets here.” The sound of running footsteps pierces the air. “Speaking of…”

Plus strides into the room at top speed, pushing a stretcher with a backboard on top. CJ comes running in after him.

“Where’s RJ?” asks Bim, finally getting some breath back.

“We split up to look for Plus,” CJ explains, “I’m not sure where he went, but I’ll text him that I found Plus already.”

“Plus, help me get Yan onto the backboard,” Dr. Iplier says. Plus nods and gets to work. Dr. Iplier pauses a moment. “Looks like I need a third pair of hands. Bim, come over here.”

“Me?” Bim asks as he comes over.

“Someone has to put pressure on Yan’s bullet wound, it’s been bleeding too long already.” Dr. Iplier grabs a pack of gauze out of his med kit and hands it to Bim as he kneels down. He moves Yandere’s arm out of the way, revealing the wound. “Just keep pressing down on it with the gauze. If the gauze gets soaked through, tell me.”

Bim nods and starts putting pressure on Yandere’s wound, making Yandere whimper.

“Dad,” Yandere says, his first word since waking.

“You’ll be alright, hon,” Dr. Iplier tells him gently as he and Plus strap Yandere to the backboard and Bim keeps his hands pushing down. “Just keep staying still, alright?”

“Okay,” Yandere answers, too tired to do much else.

“Alright, he’ll be okay,” Bim sighs to himself.

“Doc,” Wilford gasps, speaking for the first time in a while, “Is it my fault?”

“Well…” Dr. Iplier says, unwilling to say “no.”

“What the hell, Doc!?” Bim cries, angry on Wilford’s behalf.

“Excuse me for not being very forgiving to the guy who shot my son and made him fall off a catwalk!!” Dr. Iplier snaps, beginning to wrap a cervical collar around Yandere’s neck. “It’s a miracle Yandere isn’t paralyzed, it’s a miracle he’s alive at all! So sorry for not pretending this wasn’t Wilford’s fault. I’ve told him a hundred times to be more careful with that gun.”

“I’m sorry,” Wilford murmurs, so quiet it’s hard to hear.

“That’s my line,” Dr. Iplier mutters, though most of the venom is gone from his voice as he focuses on Yandere.

Perhaps fortunately, Wilford doesn’t react. He’s still too shell-shocked to do much at all. Now his mind conjures memories of the dead body on the floor rising from the grave, getting back up and wandering to a mirror. The mirror cracked, and Wilford had, too. Not even in his nightmares has the image been as clear as it is now, watching Yandere get strapped to the backboard and a cervical collar get wrapped around his neck, hearing his voice. Yandere’s eyes land on Wilford, and he tries to smile reassuringly through his pain and blood loss. It makes Wilford move for the first time in minutes, but only to take a nervous step back. All he can see is a once-dead thing, moving with new, cursed life.

As if on cue, a burst of wind rushes through the studio as Darkiplier appears in the room with RJ beside him, who looks like he’s about to have a heart attack. And no wonder; Dark’s face is a picture of rage, but the screams and waving of his aura betray his inner fear. RJ must have ran into him while looking for Plus.

“What the hell happened to Yandere??” Dark growls.

“He got hit by a stray bullet while he was up in the catwalks,” Dr. Iplier explains, grabbing the backboard behind Yandere’s head as Plus does the same by his feet. “You’ve missed all the action, we’re just getting Yan to the clinic. He’s not paralyzed, luckily, and his time looks pretty decent for what he’s just been through.” He turns away from Dark to address Plus and Bim. “On three, Plus is lifting with me, and Bim, you’re following along and keeping the pressure on Yan’s wound. One, two, three–”

Plus follows effortlessly and Bim follows less so, but Yandere gets on the stretcher easily.

“Alright, Plus, you push Yan to the clinic, and I’ll take bullet wound duty from Bim,” Dr. Iplier says, stepping around the stretcher to stand in Bim’s place. Bim doesn’t need to be told twice, moving out of the way quickly. “He still needs x-rays and surgery,” Dr. Iplier tells Dark, “So you can’t have a moment with him yet.”

“Yami,” Yandere says, smiling faintly, seemingly too out of it to say much else.

“You’re alright, my love,” Dark murmurs to him, “I’ll see you soon.” He nods to Dr. Iplier, and he and Plus whisk Yandere away.

Left in the studio are Bim, the nervous Jim twins crowding around him, Dark staring after Yandere, and Wilford now staring at nothing. A moment later, Dark turns back to the others and sees the look on Wilford’s face. He sighs.

“How long has Wilford been like this?” he asks Bim.

“Since he realized he shot Yan by accident,” Bim answers, bracing for Dark to react badly.

Instead, Dark only sighs again. He understands immediately.

“You and the Jims go,” Dark says, waving them off, “I’ll deal with this.”

Bim is reluctant to leave Wilford in such a bad state, but he does, ushering the Jims out of the studio with him. Once they’re gone, Dark turns to Wilford, putting his hands on his shoulders. The touch makes Wilford jolt. He finally looks up at Dark, eyes churning with emotion.

“Is it my fault?” he asks.

“Does it matter?” Dark counters, though his voice is gentle. “What happened has happened, it can’t be changed.”

“It can’t be changed,” Wilford repeats.

“But this isn’t like last time,” Dark continues, “Yandere survived. He’s going to be fine.”

There’s a silence as Wilford contemplates this.

“It’s too much to ask for forgiveness,” he finally murmurs, “It’s hard to even remember all that I’ve done.”

“What happened to Yandere happened minutes ago,” Dark reminds him, “Your memory isn’t that bad yet, my friend.”

Wilford smiles a little. His eyes look a little clearer, there’s a little more color in his cheeks. But a part of him is still far away.

“If it was my fault or not, I still…” Wilford trails off, as though he isn’t sure what he’s trying to say.

“This was ignorance and bad luck,” Dark tells him, “This wasn’t malice. Intent does matter.” He lets his heretofore stern tone drop into something softer. “You know how much Yandere loves you; even if you had killed him he’d still find some way to forgive you.”

Wilford laughs, quiet and surprised but genuine all the same. The last of the cloud leaves his eyes and his expression.

“Right you are, my friend,” Wilford chuckles, his accent fully returned. He blinks, looks around. “Say, where’s Bim? We still have a script to go over!”

“He left,” Dark says, taking his hands away from Wilford’s shoulders, “I doubt he’ll be in the mood to edit a script after all the…excitement.”

“Well, he’ll just have to deal with it,” Wilford huffs, though his tone is good-natured as he brushes past Dark. “We have a deadline to meet, and we’re burning daylight! He can’t have gone far…”

Dark watches Wilford leave the studio. Once he’s gone, he allows himself some sadness, lets his aura shudder and scream like it’s wanted to the whole time. After a few moments, he gains control of himself again and teleports away to the clinic to wait for Yandere, leaving the studio empty.

[davidmann95]

Got a 2020 Superman State of the Union assessment?

Not the most overtly monumental of years for big blue - a lot of the biggest news for Superman this year was about stuff we’ll see next year, which I’ll get into further below - but on the whole definitely a net positive!

Really, the only things I’d say counted ‘against’ this year were the back half of Rucka and Perkins’ Lois Lane and how badly that went off the rails - which for my money was more than counterbalanced by the conclusion to Fraction and Lieber’s Jimmy Olsen - and Romita Jr. turning in shoddy work on Action Comics. Otherwise? Bendis played out the consequences of Truth in fun ways and closed out his tenure on the main titles with a pair of artful final issues, we got Waid’s return to the character alongside Francis Manapul for a great short story, the last issue of the instantly iconic Superman Smashes The Klan, and several excellent installments in DC’s digital Man of Tomorrow series, while Commanders in Crisis introduced the Superman analogue to beat for the 2020s in Prizefighter. And in mass-media Routh’s Superman got a nice fly-by sendoff at the end of Crisis on Infinite Earths, there were two animated features in Red Son and Man of Tomorrow (the former of which I haven’t seen but the latter of which is probably the best official Superman movie, even if that says more about other Superman movies than anything else), and we naaaaarowly avoided the Superman logo being codified as fascist iconography for a generation. Oh and the comics industry did not in fact end due to Covid. So all-in-all a win.

Anonymous said: It’s almost New Year’s, what’s your predictions for Superman in 2021? (I guess you can do Batman too if you want)

So here’s what we do know officially for Superman in 2021:

* Superman & Lois will debut on the CW, the first Superman TV show (without substantial qualifiers) in 20+ years.

* Future State will feature Jon Kent taking on the mantle in Superman of Metropolis, Justice League, and Superman/Wonder Woman, while a now spacefaring Clark is in Worlds of War, Imperious Lex, Batman/Superman, and House of El. Meanwhile Kara graduates from Supergirl to Superwoman in her own two-parter as well as featuring in Superman of Metropolis, and Conner Kent appears to be acting as some kind of Superman in Suicide Squad.

* Phillip Kennedy Johnson takes over Action Comics and Superman in March, beginning with a two-part crossover The Golden Age illustrated by Phil Hester. After that Action Comics will be drawn by Daniel Sampere through around September, at which point Mikel Janin will be illustrating an event-scale arc for the book. Meanwhile Scott Godlewski will be the artist on Superman, but around the time of Janin’s arc on Action an entirely new, as yet unknown creative team will take over Superman while PKJ remains on Action. Both books will also have backup features spotlighting various Superman/Metropolis-adjacent characters as there’s little space for them in the cosmic direction the main story will be tilting towards for the time being.

* Superman: Red & Blue will debut in March as a counterpart to the various Batman: Black & White series over the years.

* Outside the main Superman books, Clark will star in Brian Bendis and David Marquez’s Justice League, as well as Gene Yang and Ivan Reis’s incredibly rad-looking dimension-hopping new take on Batman/Superman. Bendis is indicating we’ll be seeing the long-delayed Event Leviathan: Checkmate this year as well, which features Lois as one of the main characters.

* Not strictly Superman news, but apparently we’ll be seeing Netflix’s adaptation of Mark Millar and Frank Quitely’s Jupiter’s Legacy next year, which centers around the multi-generational drama of the family of Superman analogue Utopian.

* Zack Snyder’s Justice League, its hour come round at last, slouches towards HBO Max to be born.

As for predictions? Well for starters, pretty much everyone takes as a given that Mark Waid is putting together some long-form Superman project now that he’s working with DC again, and I expect to see something come of that next year; Tom King has also soft-announced he’s working on a Superman project since he’s done with scripting his three current DC minis, but I wouldn’t be surprised if nothing directly came of that until 2022. I’d also speculate that Scott Snyder has something in mind: he’s repeatedly said he’s planning on a major out-of-continuity project, and he’s made clear he’s done with Batman for the time being, I imagine he’s done whatever he wanted to for Wonder Woman with Death Metal, and anything he did with the JSA right now would be extremely in-continuity; I doubt he’s playing with anything less than the icons anytime soon and he definitely seems more engaged with Superman now than he was when he wrote Unchained (hell, the end of Last Knight on Earth can basically only be read as ‘I wanna write Superman now’). Again though, dunno that I’d put money on that being next year. 

Outside the theoretical prestige stuff, everything we’re hearing about Future State, Infinite Frontier, and PKJ’s barely-veiled discussion of his run seems to suggest Jon will end up sharing the Superman name in the present and probably taking over that book alongside the new creative team. If Batman: Urban Legends takes off then I wouldn’t be surprised if we got a Superman anthology given DC’s apparent current priorities of consolidating, testing a new publishing model, and putting the biggest names first. And maybe something will finally come of the back-and-forth over whether or not Cavill’s sticking around in the movies - if he is my first guess would be an appearance in DuVernay and King’s New Gods (which is still in progress per DuVernay as of this month) - but we can all I think be pretty sure he’s still not getting a video game anytime soon.

As for what we know for certain of Batman’s 2021:

* Future State has a whole slate of Batman-related books, but Tim Fox takes over the cape and cowl to fight the police state that’s taken over Gotham in John Ridley and Nick Derington/Laura Braga’s The Next Batman, while a resourceless Bruce on the run stars in Mariko Takaki and Dan Mora’s Dark Detective.

* James Tynion and Jorge Jimenez are solidified as the creative team on the now-monthly Batman, while Tamaki and Mora take Detective Comics, with a Damian backup by Joshua Williamson and Gleb Melnikov running through the first issues of each and apparently leading to something, probably a Robin book. Elsewhere Tom Taylor and Bruno Redondo take over Nightwing, Chip Zdarsky and Eddy Barrows spearhead the new anthology title Batman: Urban Legends, and Tynion and Gullem March launch a Joker ongoing, while Bruce also stars in the aforementioned Justice League and Batman/Superman.

* The Gotham Knights game is scheduled to drop next year.

Aside from the Infinite Frontier cover suggesting Tim Fox will take on a role in the present before long as (a) Batman same as Jon Kent as Superman, hopefully with Ridley and Derington coming back, it doesn’t feel like there’s a ton of big Batman stuff to speculate on? Aside from the inevitable unannounced Black Label stuff - including probably Scott Snyder’s Nightwing book - we know the basic shape of things. The Batman is inching closer, Tynion/Jimenez are probably on Batman through at least the end of the year, Mora I don’t think stays on Detective because he’s committed to Once & Future but Tamaki presumably does, Taylor/Redondo Nightwing is immediately going to be a fandom favorite, and Gotham Knights is probably gonna suck because boy that doesn’t look very good. We know the broad strokes of where he’s headed for the time being across all media. If I had to take a whack at a big guess, I’d say I’m a touch skeptical about that HBO GCPD show or the Batmobile cartoon reaching fruition, the former because that’s an incredibly charged premise that has to act perfectly in sync with another mass-media project in another medium AND we know there’s already been behind-the-scenes drama, and the latter because that sounds incredibly stupid.

EDIT: Forgot, Bendis said in 2019 he was working on a Black Label Batman book, so wouldn’t be surprised to see that too this year.

[aion-rsa]

Archer Season 12: Casey Willis On Sterling And Cyril’s Emotional Breakthrough

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This article contains spoilers for Archer season 12 episode 5.

Archer has a fascinating relationship with change. Major elements like the show’s genre have transformed, but a constant through the years are the characters and their relationships with one another. The series has made it clear that these character dynamics are quite toxic in many ways, some of which have left the characters looking for ways to grow. The most recent seasons have prioritized the cause and effect nature of Archer waking up from his coma and returning to work, which has left everyone feeling very raw and vulnerable, including Sterling Archer himself. 

Archer’s latest episode, “Shots,” dresses itself up as a playful night of liquor and laughs, but it becomes a deep look into Archer’s poisonous effect on his friends, specifically Cyril. Archer EP Casey Willis and producer Pierre Cerrato deconstruct the emotional entry and its significance in the season, putting together the glorious “Pampage” sequence, and if those were really the origins of “Sploosh.”

Archer Season 12 Episode 5 – “Shots”

Written by Matt Roller “Sex, drugs, and monster trucks! Archer and the gang celebrate another barely successful mission.”

DEN OF GEEK: With this being the half-way point of the season, were there any sort of goals or expectations in check for this point in the season, or was it not thought about in such a precise way?

PIERRE CERRATO: We are definitely thinking about how we are telling the story across the entire season. It may feel like a standalone episode, but I can’t really slot this episode anywhere else in our season. We needed to feel that the gang had been on a few missions and could use a break. We also needed to expand on Lana and Robert’s relationship a bit. And we really needed to Weekend at Bernie’s two different characters. That was a must.

There’s a bit of a bottle episode mentality with this installment when it begins and a lot of the entry is contained to the bar. What was the agenda in scaling things down here and was it ever smaller in nature?

PIERRE CERRATO: For the first half of the episode it may feel like there isn’t a ton going on narratively and we are just hanging out at a bar, but there are some nuggets in there that will come into play later in the season. While those early scenes may feel small in scale, hanging out in a populated bar comes with its own difficulties. We have to design and layout every individual character that is present at the bar and make sure they are engaged in just enough activity to feel natural, but not enough to take your attention away from our main action. Once we enter the rave, the scale of the episode gets pretty big.

There’s a self-aware nature to this episode as the characters reflect on the rut that they’ve found themselves in and the predictable nature of their dynamics. Why did this feel like the right time to ask these questions?

CASEY WILLIS: This episode was always planned to fall in the middle of the season. It was a great time for the characters to reflect and take stock of their situations. We also planted a lot of seeds for stories that will pay off in the second half of the season. And it was great to have Sandra, with her outside perspective, act as a cheerleader for the team at the start of the episode. However, by the end of the episode she realizes the team is a mess.

The brewing personal drama and stress with Lana and Robert continus to carry over and be present. Talk on that a little and why having that as a throughline through the season rather than them being entirely broken up or on healthy ground?

CASEY WILLIS: We wanted Lana and Robert’s relationship to get more complex and a bit messy this season. Is it because Archer is back in the picture, or is Archer just shining a spotlight on some behaviors Lana ignored in the past? This is a season long storyline and we are very excited for everyone to see how Lana and Robert handle these hiccups.

Lana seems to regress in some ways in this episode while she searches for clarity. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?

CASEY WILLIS: We wanted Lana’s story to contrast Archer’s in this episode. We also wanted her and Sandra’s story to connect to the previous episode and just show Lana having some fun. So many times Lana has to play the “wet blanket” role in an episode and it’s nice to see her cut loose. In fact, it’s Pam of all people who tries and fails to stop Lana from partying with the Prince! When Pam is the voice of reason, your party is off the rails.

The most moving material from this episode is Archer’s resolve to “fix” Cyril. This is a major aspect of the previous season, but why did it feel important to readdress it here and go so far as to resolve the problem?

CASEY WILLIS: Last season we saw the decline of Cyril and while Pam tried to rebuild him, Archer and Cyril’s relationship was much more contentious. Archer and Cyril had some great moments though, especially in last season’s Aleister episode. We wanted to show Archer’s growth and him realizing that he does care for Cyril in his own twisted way. Also, we wanted to show Archer having fun in situations we normally don’t see him in, while also showing a glimpse into Cyril’s free time.

Where is Archer’s head at during the end of this, does he actually feel remorse, and will he be closer with Cyril moving forward at all?

CASEY WILLIS: I think he grew a bit, but he isn’t emotionally mature enough to share that with Cyril. We purposefully had Archer undercut all the progress he made when Pam called him. Then we further rubbed salt into the wound when Archer used Cyril as a step-stool. It’s just Archer’s way of showing affection.

The neon visuals during the “Pampage” dance party look gorgeous and are a serious highlight. Was it difficult to construct that scene?

PIERRE CERRATO: Our team went above and beyond to answer the call of the “Pampage.” It was a very complicated sequence. The script outlined four different areas in the warehouse that Pam takes the gang to. We needed to figure out what it would look like if there was a rave, a bare knuckle fight and a punk band playing while a monster truck is crushing cars in the back. Everyone did a fantastic job with that specific scene, and it took us a long time to get through it. If you take a closer look at the whole episode, you’ll realize just how many beautiful set pieces there are throughout. For example, the game store, the planetarium, Ding Dong’s strip club (the logo is my personal favorite), etc. Our artists, designers and animators are pretty incredible across the board.

CASEY WILLIS: Just a quick side note. We never really promote Archer merch because we are so focused on producing the show, however, when creating the “Pampage” shirts that Pam and the gang wore in this episode, we thought it would be great if FX would sell them. For anyone interested, they’re available soon via https://shop.fxnetworks.com/collections/archer.

This episode also seems to provide the origins of “Sploosh.” Did it feel time to provide some context there?

CASEY WILLIS: Is it the origin or did Lana just think it might be the origin? I am of the opinion that “Sploosh” has an organic origin from deep in Pam’s past. Sploosh, the bouncer, was probably bestowed that nickname by Pam, but I doubt he is the origin of the word.

It’s not just specific to this episode, but there’s some really nice staccato jazzy music that’s present throughout the season. How did this season’s sound come about?

PIERRE CERRATO: We can thank our amazing composer, JG Thirwell. He has been working with us since season seven and prior to that, we used needle drop for all our music. It worked well, but you can’t beat having an original score and developing a musical language with someone as talented as JG. 

We had a phone call at the beginning of season 12 to go over our plans and share some musical ideas. We knew that Fabian was going to be a season-long villain, so we made sure to give him his own themes. We usually temp the music in our edit and when JG gets it, he’ll put his spin on it. If we use something that he has composed for another episode, he’ll tweak it to match the new timing, add extra instrumentation or anything else he feels would work for the scene. We don’t really go back and forth too much. We’ll generally do a round of notes and we’re good.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Our writers’ room walkthrough for Archer’s 12th season will conclude with this season’s eighth and final episode.

Our breakdown of Archer’s 12th season premiere and previous writers’ room walkthroughs on earlier seasons are also available. 

The post Archer Season 12: Casey Willis On Sterling And Cyril’s Emotional Breakthrough appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[inkdragonworks]

Poppin & Jupa: Pocket Adventure - 2020 Review

Today marks the 4th year of (very slow) development on Pocket Adventure! I didn’t get Chapter 2 finished like I wanted, but I did make a lot of overall touches on the game and seeing more people enjoying it, after putting out two demos.

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JANUARY

The year started when I released the first public demo, and received the first wave of helpful feedback. While I planned to work more on chapter 2 this year, I ended up working more on addressing aspects of the overall game and what shows up in chapter 1. The Tornup boss in particular, took a lot of editing to be more balanced.

But I did start work on the obstacles and enemies for chapter 2 here.

FEBRUARY

I scaled back some work to experiment with an animation, but I did start on the Rockroach enemy and updating how the Drill gadget worked.

MARCH

Another slow month due to picking up a round of commission work. Substantially I fleshed out the Drill gadget changes more, making something more fast paced.

APRIL

Dev work picked up this time, where I started to really address the chapter 1 fixes. The biggest one being implementing partner attacks.

MAY

More chapter 1 fixes, such as updating the minimap to be more user friendly and legible. Then, returning to chapter 2 obstacles: poison gas, elevators, and collecting ascentipede pieces to move a boulder for a puzzle. During this month, I also worked a week on a small fangame for my friend, Kunedon.

JUNE

Busier month, where I continued to finish up the drill, reworking the anvil and snowball glove alts. The minecarts were fleshed out more, and I implemented choose chests, a new way of collecting glove alternates. I added in the Bit enemy, and sprited Boulderoach.

JULY

Boulderoach finished, minecarts finished, and I decided to update Poppin's sprites to match his current design. Major work was on drafting out the main chapter 2 map, followed by placing enemies and obstacles and setting up puzzles.

AUGUST

I decided to prepare for SAGE, so I was bouncing between making the base game nicer (fixed Jupa's dialogue sprites, room transition animation, glove reacting better to hills and sticking out longer, and other nice touches), and making more progress on chapter 2 (cutscenes, dialogue sprites, more map work). The biggest change was adding in a new title screen sequence to make it feel more like a real game.

SEPTEMBER

This was the month SAGE started, so I spent a lot of time checking out feedback and interest from people on the updated Chapter 1 demo, which was very helpful. There weren't as many criticisms, and people seemed to be enthusiastic about the game, for what it is. Very good for my own motivation. During it I kept pecking at chapter 2: making the mid boss, starting the chapter 2 end boss, working on some in game npc sprites, and coding cutscenes.

OCTOBER

Chapter 2 work continues! Finishing up the boss attack for the chapter, followed by starting the grueling process of playing through what's there, listing out every bug and issue, and beginning work fixing all of them. I got about halfway through that list before taking a break from scripting work, but I did tinker a bit with giving Jupa a separate attack style.

NOVEMBER

Programming work slowed down here, as I started focusing on some real life stuff. I did go back to finishing up design notes on the later main chapters; chapters 3 and 4 having their progression, obstacles, enemies, cutscenes, and map fully drafted out. I also did some more cutscene portraits.

DECEMBER Like last month, I've been busy with real life and commissions. But I did finish drafting notes on chapters 5, 6, and 7, so I should have a better plan on the rest of the main game now. 

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There’s a lot left out again, I think most of it was art work, fixes, and making things easier to work overtime for myself. I think the best part was getting to share demos, especially for SAGE, and getting feedback from people outside my usual place. It’s very hard working on a game this big and learning as I go along, and being scared a lot if people will enjoy it. So it’s nice to feel better now, though I’ll have to slow down as I try to focus on getting real life stuff sorted out.

For 2021, I would like to get another demo by the end of it, though it’s contents I haven’t fully settled on. Chapter 2 might seem obvious, but we’ll see. I would like to start getting original sound and music assets, finishing chapter 2, but I’d also like it to finish more ahead on the main chapters, getting their rooms drafted out and finishing up a script, that way I can settle on doing the sprites and programming and not worrying as much about conceptualizing.

Hopefully it all goes well, and things can sort out for me so I can have more focused work soon. Thank you for keeping up with the game!

[jimlingss]

The Colour of Our Voices [16]

Chapter 15 - Chapter 16 - Chapter 17

➜ Words: 3.5k

➜ Genres: 98% Fluff, 2% Angst, Slice of Life, Broadway!AU

➜ Summary: He wasn’t supposed to hear. He wasn't supposed to know. But the instant Jimin came into your life and pulled the curtains back, you couldn't hide backstage anymore. You were no longer merely a phantom of the opera.

cr.

He’s never there.   Like a ghost, Jimin vanishes from thin air. As if he never even moved in. Like you didn’t wake up one morning to a moving truck and cardboard boxes everywhere in the hall that made you trip. Like you never spent countless nights teaching him how to sing and the ins and outs of Broadway. Like you never came home after a long day to a brunette boy in pajamas cooking and singing to himself at the stove.   It feels like a dream.    The only evidence that he existed in your life is lingering traces of him left in your apartment, toothbrush, hair products, soft sweaters that you still wear and bring up to your nose and cry into.   Even after three weeks, you’re still sobbing even when you try not to. As long as there’s silence, your mind wanders back to him and tears start shedding down your cheeks.   You feel the mattress dip. “Y/N.”    Yeonjeon pulls back the covers and sighs at the mess you’ve become. She hands you a cold water bottle. “For God's sake, stop crying. Aren’t you tired? Drink some water before you become dehydrated and die.”   “I….I-I’m sorry,” you hiccup, wiping your face with the back of your head. You lift yourself to drink the bottle while you’re still hiccuping.   The actress sighs. “What’s the point of drinking if you’re going to cry it out. Finish the bottle!” she shouts when you begin to put it down only half-finished. You listen to her and finish it off.   “I’m sorry.”    You pull the covers to your chin, tempted to drag it over your head again, but you know she’ll rip it off of you. You’ve been here long enough to know that Yeonjeon hates talking to lumps — she prefers to see facial expressions and to sickly revel in how upset someone can look from her jabs.   “Yeah, well, I’m sorry too, alright?” she grumbles and sighs. Yeonjeon would offer to take you out and find a rebound, but it doesn’t seem like you're even close to being at the stage of wanting to go outside. “Don’t you have your performance in two weeks?”   You don’t make a sound, merely sniffling. You stare at the huge mountain of tissues on the nightstand from wiping your snot and tears.   “You gotta get better before then, come on, Y/N. You’re not even trying right now. At least two weeks ago you took a shower. Have you even washed your hair since then?”   You stay quiet for a second before your lips part—   “I...I love him.”   “Uh-huh. He probably loves you too, but y’all are dumbasses.”   The thought that Jimin might still love you has you sobbing even louder. You wail, shifting in her covers to face away from her. Yeonjeon slaps her hand against her face, wishing it would knock her right out so she wouldn’t have to deal with this bullshit. “Oh my god. Listen, I love when you come over, but this is pretty pathetic even for you, Y/N. It’s been three weeks. When are you planning to go home?”   “I,” you hiccup, “don’t know.”   “Are you scared of running into him or what?”   That’s not it.   You spent a week in your apartment before taking refuge in Yeonjeon’s home. But that short time frame was enough to realize the chances of you running into him are slim. Jimin is seldom there.   He hasn’t moved out, technically still your neighbor, but you wouldn’t be surprised if he’s living somewhere else now. Or crashing at some pretty girl’s house and sleeping in her bed instead.   “No.”   “Then what are you scared of?”   That you’ll come home to your empty apartment and realize he’ll never come back. That you’ll realize it was your fault that you kicked him out of your apartment and he’s disappeared off the face of the planet because of it. That all his lingering belongings are still there, belongings that you could never throw out.    You can’t even bring yourself to call or text him. He probably wouldn’t pick up. And knowing that the silence is inevitable no matter what you do is the worst.   “I love him…”   “Yeah, and I fucking would love it if you got off your ass.” Yeonjeon isn’t very good at comforting people. She made that known when you came to her. But she serves the truth on a silver platter, and says what you need to hear. “You’ve said you’ve loved him probably a million times by now. I’m sick of it. I get it. You two are dumb and pathetic for each other. But unless you want your career to go down the drain like your relationship, you should clean yourself up, Y/N.”   You cry louder and she rolls her eyes.   But as you cry, vision fogged up by saltwater, you peel the covers off of you. Slowly, you get to your feet.    “There you go.” Yeonjeon nods in approval, watching you stumble to the bathroom after grabbing your script from the other nightstand and pressing it to your chest like it’s a lifeline.   You try singing in the shower in between your sobs and reciting your lines in the middle of your hiccups.

The door to your apartment opens.   You’ve returned home for a full day now after much convincing and Yeonjeon threatening to throw you out the street if you don’t get your shit together.    You’ve decided that you’re going to take it one day at a time. But you can’t help the way you stop in front of his door instead of leaving for rehearsals. You linger. Eyes stinging. Until you tear them away and lurch down the hall, rounding the corner to the stairwell.   It’s bad timing.   At the same moment as you turn, the door to Jimin’s apartment opens. The pair of you miss each other by sheer seconds.   And if you saw him, you’d find that Jimin’s become a ghost. His skin is a sickly shade, hair in disarray, nose red, the underneath of his eyes also a shade of scarlet from incessantly rubbing and crying. Even now his eyes are still glossy.   He braces himself against the wall, facing your apartment door. “Y/N?”   Jimin’s voice cracks. It’s the most horrible sound that’s left his throat. He knocks on your door again, knuckles weakly rapping against the surface. “Y/N? I...need to talk.”   No one answers. He tries the bell, but to no avail.   Of course. You wouldn’t want to talk to someone like him — not face to face, not through text, not through phone. You probably hate him now and he wouldn’t blame you. He’s a selfish prick that’s time and time again taken you for granted.   “I...I love you, please...p-please, open the door,” Jimin sobs and silence answers.   He tightens his hold on the note in his hand. He was scared this would happen — that you wouldn’t want to talk to him, that you wouldn’t want to see him. So he tried to write something instead to hand to you. He wasn’t sure what he could say to make it better in a few words, and he wrote a million versions, a thousand different things.   But the note that was in his hands was the one he chose in the end, the final one he decided on. It’s written carefully, as best as he could with a shaking hand. But as he looks down to the white square of paper in his hand, he doesn’t know if he can slip it underneath your door.   After another beat, he crumples the note in his fist.   Jimin turns back to his apartment, shuts the door and throws it into the garbage. Your eyes never see it. It never read his words—   I’m sorry. I love you.

After months of filming and editing, the amount of grueling work you knew it took, it’s finally finished.   You tug on your black dress, lost in the sea of glamour and high-maintenance movie critics. But you still search for Jimin.   Yeonjeon called you a dumb bitch when you expressed that you wanted a ticket to the early premier of Jimin’s movie. But she gave it to you anyway through her connections. The Broadway actress even helped you slap on a thick layer of makeup to hide the mess you were in for crying all day and night. She didn’t come herself — citing that she wanted to be spared from your stupidity. You wish you could spare yourself too, but you missed him too much to worry about your pride and how idiotic you were for doing this.   Though it seems like your effort is futile, that you’re being played again by the world, that you’ve been dealt a bad hand. You can’t find Jimin in the crowd no matter how hard you search with your eyes or where you turn.   Eventually, you’re pushed into the theater, forced to take your place at the very back in the corner. Even then you don’t see Jimin. The director and main actors briefly introduce the movie, giving a speech of how wonderful everything was. And Jimin’s missing the entire time.   It’s not until the lights dim and five minutes into the movie, you see a black shadow enter and quickly sneaking to one of the front row seats. In the darkness of the theater, all you’re allowed to see is the back of Jimin’s head.   But at least you get to see his face on the big screen. You get to hear his voice. You get to feel the way your heart blooms with pride. And you cry quietly in the theater, wiping your tears away with hopes that no one notices.   //   People file out gradually, spilling out of the theater.    Jimin’s able to talk to a few people who compliment the movie’s storyline and his skills. He musters a smile, but it’s hard to network when his mind isn’t in the right state. He knows he’s losing out on chances when he’s not staying focused, but he can’t come to feign happiness.   It’s in the middle of a conversation with some wife of a critic that the corner of his eye catches something. Or rather, someone familiar.   His head whips over. “Excuse me….”   Jimin walks away as if entranced. Then his footsteps speed up.   He swears he saw it — the strands of your hair, the profile of your face, your eyes, lashes, the slope of your nose, the dip of your cupid’s bow. He saw a familiar black dress, the one you never got to wear outside, the one he saw on the night he forgot about his promise.   “Y/N?” Jimin shouts above the crowd of people like a crazed man. He moves past them, ignoring people’s grumble, gasps, and dirty looks. “Y/N?!”   He fights through the group of people, lifting himself to look over people’s heads. He feels like he’s swimming against the current of the sea, a horde of people in between you and him. After a moment, Jimin manages to stumble out from the mass of people, and he turns his body to every direction possible.    But you’re gone. Vanished. Like it was a mere figment of his desperate imagination.   That’s right. It’s impossible. How could you come here? Why would you?   “Are you alright, man?”   Jungkook finds him, doe eyes wide and full of concern.   Jimin’s still looking everywhere he can, brows furrowed deep enough to hurt, the knot ruining his features. “I...I thought I saw her.”   Jungkook finally understands and sighs, patting his friend on the back. “I’m sorry, dude.”    And the actor is genuinely sympathetic. He knew how much Jimin loved you.

For a long time, neither of you could find equilibrium between your relationship and your ambitions.   It seemed to be one or the other. It seemed like you had to make a choice, a choice neither you nor Jimin wanted to make when they were both equally valued. But now you've lost half of what you wanted, a huge component lost — and suddenly, there’s so much time left.   Suddenly, it feels so empty.   The production you were working on was going exceptionally well. Now that you’re performing in the evenings, mornings and early afternoons have become open time slots. Time used to feel so short and fleeting, like you were constantly trying to grasp for it. But now it mocks you by showing up in abundance.   You wonder if Jimin feels the same way now that his movie's complete.   You’re singing alone in an empty studio. It’s a good excuse for you to not go back to your apartment and have to be faced with the fact that he's never there anymore. But you’re interrupted halfway through a duet you used to sing with Jimin by a knock on the door.   “Hey there! Thought I'd find you here. I hope I’m not interrupting.”   A small smile lifts on your features — it’s not as stiff as it's usually been. “It’s okay. It's been a while, Taehyung.”   Taehyung grins, entering with his arms behind his back, head quirked to one side. “I know. I'm sorry. I've been so swamped with work lately — which is actually something I wanted to talk to you about — but I can't wait to catch up with you and Jimin soon.”   You feel yourself tense, blood running cold, but you try not to show it and it’s getting easier. “What did you want to talk about?”   The blonde man’s eyes sparkle in excitement. “Sit down, sit down. This is pretty important.”   You laugh, taking a seat and he claims a spot right across from you. “Okay. What is it?”   “Alright. So I've been fairly busy for the past few months finishing my own screenplay that I've been working on for years.”   “That's so exciting, Taehyung!” You mean it too. In many ways, he’s like you, on his own path trying to reach success. You’ve known for a long time he's been an aspiring screenplay and producer.   “I know.” Taehyung grins, mouth drawn into a rectangle, irises twinkling with lights from above. “And I got it approved by Director Lee and I pitched it to a whole bunch of people, and it worked! And I'm going to be running my own original production here on Broadway.”   Your eyes are wide and you smile, reaching over to hug him. Taehyung laughs, squeezing you once before you let go of one another. “That is so incredible, Taehyung. I'm...speechless.”   “That makes the two of us,” he laughs again. “But I wanted to talk to you specifically because I want you to be my main female lead.”   “What?”   “Will you do me the honours?” Taehyung asks with a blazing smile.   “Are you serious?”   “More than I could ever be.”   “I....” Your mouth is a gaping hole and you gasp for breath. “I don't know what to say.”   “Say yes please.” Taehyung snickers. “I promise, it's a really fun character and I think you'll suit it. To be frank, you're the only one I can imagine for the role. I've envisioned you for a long time now.”   You’re emotional. Touched. “Yes!”   “Yes?”   “Yes, I'll do it!” There’s no one more than you trust as a director and producer than Taehyung in this sort of thing. You know whatever he's created, it'll be spectacular, and you feel overwhelmingly grateful that he’s chosen you to take on such a big role. “Thank you.”   “No, thank you!” He fist pumps the air, eagerness infectious and it makes giggles bubble out of your chest. “There’s so much I want to tell you, but first thing first, it's going to be called 'The Colour of Our Voices'.”   “‘The Colour of Our Voices’?”   “Yeah, what do you think? It's about a senior actress who's been on Broadway for a decade now and she's lost her passion for acting and singing, but she meets this newcomer actor who's really lively and optimistic. It's going to be a love story with some drama in it.”   “I think that sounds lovely, Taehyung.”   He smiles. “Thank you. Now all I have to talk to is Jimin. Don't tell him I told you though — I want to keep it a surprise.”   “Jimin?”   “I want him to play the main male lead. You think he'll say yes? I know he's been busy on his own projects…”   “Taehyung.” Your lips draw into a straight light, eyes dimming. “Jimin and I, we’ve broken up.”   The man blinks, ears not picking up on what you just said. “You guys have spoken up?”   “No, we’ve broken up.”   “Oh.”   “Yeah…” As you say it, your bottom lip starts trembling again. Taehyung must see the way your expression crumples — the tears making your eyes glossy, the furrow of your brows, the twitch of your cheek muscles and scrunch of your nose, because he becomes alert.   “Are you okay?” His hands lift, not sure if he should touch you or how he should even comfort you. Taehyung can barely get over his own shock. He’s baffled beyond speech. “W-What happened? I thought you two…..I thought….you guys were….”   You end up with a tissue in your hand, dabbing underneath your eyes as the conversation takes an unexpected turn. “—came out of nowhere. I just….I don’t know what to do anymore.”   Taehyung nods, having listened quietly for the past ten minutes. “I could’ve never guessed. Since when did his head get so far up his own ass?”   He playfully bumps into your shoulder, trying to stop you from crying. You muster a smile. “It was my fault too. I knew he felt really guilty, but I didn’t do anything to help him. I just didn’t know he felt that bad about...us.”   “Hey, it’s okay. He doesn’t know what he’s missing out on,” Taehyung quips, easing you. “Do you still want me to—”   “Yeah. I don’t want you to take an opportunity away from him. I don’t want to ruin your vision if you’ve always imagined Jimin.” You nod. “I...I can be professional.”   “Okay. If you change your mind, tell me, alright? I don’t want any of you guys to be uncomfortable and if you think you can’t work together, I’ll find some way to accommodate or change my plan.”   “Yeah, but I think I’ll be okay. I just need some time.”   He understands and hums warmly. “If you want, I can go beat him up first.”   You smile in the middle of a sniffle. “Yeonjeon already offered that.”   “I bet she did. But it’s always better to jump someone when you have a whole team of them,” he says, and you burst out laughing. “How about this?” Taehyung leans in, voice dropping into a husky whisper. “We break into Jimin’s home in the middle of the night and beat the shit out of him. You get a cane. Yeonjeon gets a golf club. I get a baseball bat.”   You laugh again — Taehyung always knows how to make you feel better.

In the meanwhile, Jimin steps off the elevator.   He ignores the stares he gets from people passing by. He knows he looks like a mess, that he hasn’t showered in days, that his hair is a wreck. He can only imagine what his face looks like.   Nonetheless, the brunette wobbles down the hall. He wonders if you’re in the studio — you’ve always said the last room on the second floor was perfect, that the acoustics were just right somehow in comparison to the others. He remembers clearly. It seems like these days Jimin’s recalling all the details about you. Memories. Things that you’ve said. He plays them over like broken records in his head.   Jimin braces himself on the wall as he gets close enough to the end of the corridor. And then his ears perk at the light sound of your sudden laughter. Goosebumps raise all over his arms.   But as he peeks into the room, he finds you with Taehyung.   The two of you are laughing and smiling together.   Your expression is lit up, happier than you were with him in the past few months.    Jimin stares for a second.   He was wrong. Looking at you from afar isn’t enough to satisfy him. To know that you were still well, to see you when he missed you so much — it’s not enough for him to feel better. Jimin doesn’t step forward into the light. He doesn’t allow himself to be known. He doesn’t confront you, and ask if you were there on the day of the early premier. If you were there for him.   He doesn’t want to ruin this moment for you. He doesn’t want to make you upset anymore.   So he walks away. 

[rumata-est]

Michael Sheen talks about his first meeting with Neil Gaiman

I’ve made a script from David Tennant’s podcast

David: Tell me about Neil Gaiman then.

Michael: This is what brought us together. The new love story for the 21 c. When I went to drama school there was a guy called Harry Turner in my year. Within a first few weeks we’re doing something, I mean a drink or whatever, and he said to me “do you read comic books?” And I said “no”. I mean this was 1988-89.. so it was.. now I know that it was a period of time when big change, transformation going on through comic books. Rather then it being sort of just super heroes, Batman and Superman. There was this whole new era of generation of writers like Grant Morrison. And starting to address different kind of subjects through the comic book medium so it wasn’t superheroes, it was all kind of stuff going on. Really fascinating stuff, and I was totally unaware of this.

And so this guy Harry said to me “do you read them”? And I said “no”. And he went like: ok, here’s the Watchmen by Alan Moore, here’s Swamp Thing, here’s Hell Blazer, and here’s Sandman. And Sandman was Neil Gaiman’s kind of big series, sort of point his name on the map.

And I read all those, and I was just blown away by all of them. But particularly the Sandman stories cause he was sort drawing on mythology, fairy tales, folklore, and philosophy, and Shakespeare and all kinds of stuff were being kind of mixed up in the story. And I absolutely loved that. So I became a big fan of Neil, started reading everything by him, and then fairly shortly after that within six month or a year Good Omens the book came out which Neil wrote with Terry Pratchett. And so I got the book, cause I was obviously a big fan of Neil by this point, so I read it, loved it, then started reading Terry Pratchett’s stuff as well cause I didn’t know his stuff before then. And then spent years and years and years just, you know, being a huge fan of both of them. And then eventually, you know, I’ve done films like Underworld films, and doing Twilight films... and I think it was one of the Twilight films. There was a lot of veeery snooty interviews that happened, where people who considered themselves well above talking about things like Twilight: we’re having to interview, you know, me, and weirdly coming out it from the attitude of “clearly this is below you as well”. Weirdly thinking I’m gonna go: yeah, fine, Twilight... And I just used to go: you know what? Some one the greatest writing of the last 50 to 100 years is happened in science fiction, or fantasy. I mean like Philip K. Dick is one of my favorite writers of all time. In fact the production of Hamlet I did was mainly influenced by Philip K. Dick. And you know Ursula le Guin, Asimov... All this amazing people, and I talked about Neil as well, went off a bit of a rant... the interview came out, bubble. About six month later maybe: knock on the door, open the door - delivery of a big box. Interesting... Open the box - a card on the top of the box, I opened the card, it says

From one fan to another.

Neil Gaiman

And inside the box like first editions of Neil’s stuff, and all kinds of interesting things by Neil. And he just sent this stuff to me.

David: You’ve never met him.

Michael: Never met him. He’d read the interview, or someone’d let him know about this interview where I sang his praises, stood up for him and the people who are working within sort of genre... And he just got in touch.

We met up for the first time, I was in Los Angeles when he came to LA, and he said “I take you for a meal”. I was like “alright”. He said, “you wanna go somewhere posh or somewhere interesting”, and I said, “lets go somewhere interesting” he said “right I’m gonna take you to this restaurant which is called the Hump, and it’s at Santa Monica airport”. And its a sushi restaurant. I was like alright, ok. I had a mini at that time,we drive off to the Santa Monica airport and this restaurant was right on the tarmac. There was nobody else there, we got there quite early, and you watching the planes landing on Santa Monica airport. It was like extraordinary! And the chef comes out, Neil says “just bring whatever you want, chef’s choice”. I have never eaten sushi before, and we set this incredible meal when they keep bringing these, you know, dishes, and they say “this is blah blah blah, just use a little bit of soy sauce, whatever”, you know, “this is eel”... and this was one dish they brought to us they didn’t say what it was. It was like mystery dish. And yet it delicious. Few more people started coming at the restaurant at that time, I said “Neil, I can’t eat anymore, I have to stop now, this is great but” he went “ok we’ll ask for the bill in a minute”, and then the door opens, and some very official people come in. And it was the FEDs. And the FEDs and we knew cause there were jackets on that said part of the federal bureau or whatever, and about six of them coming. One goes behind the counter, two go into the kitchen, one goes to the back. With like guns on and stuff, and me and Neil were like “what on Earth is going on??��� And then eventually one guy said: ladies and gentlemen if you haven’t ordered already, please leave; if you’re still eating your meal, please finish up, pay your bill, leave. And we were like “oh my god we’re poisoned?? is this some terrible thing in them?” So we sort of finished, paid our bill, and then all the kitchen staff walked abroad it, and the head chef was there, the guy who was bringing us dishes. He’s in tears, and he says to Neil “ I’m so sorry”, apologizes to Neil, and we leave. And we have no idea what happened.

David: But you’re assuming it’s a mystery dish.

Michael: Well, we’re assuming... it cant be poisonous, that terrible terrible thing! So the next day was the Oscars which is why Neil was in town, cause Coraline had been nominated for Oscar. Best documentary that year was one by The Cove... which was by a team of people who had come across dolphins being killed, I think. And turns out what was happening in this restaurant was they were having illegal endangered species flown in to the airport, and then being brought round the back of the restaurant into the kitchen. We had eaten whale. Endangered species whale. That was the mystery dish they didn’t say what it was. And the team behind The Cove were behind this thing, and they took them down that night we were there.

David: That’s extraordinary

Michael: for month me and Neil were like “have you heard anything - no I’ve not”, and then we heard it was something to do with a coven, eventually, we found out that they were all arrested, the restaurant was shut down, and... we had eaten whale that night.

David: That was your first meeting with Neil Gaiman.

Michael: That was my first meeting. And also in a drive home that night from that restaurant he said (and we were in my mini) “have you found the secret compartment” i said “what are you talking about?” Such a Neil Gaiman thing to say! Secret compartment. “Yeah, each of man has got a secret compartments” I said “I had no idea it’s secret”, and he pressed a little button, and a thing opened up. And it was a secret compartment in my own car that Neil Gaiman showed me.

David: Was there anything inside it?

Michael: Yeah, there was a little man and he jumped out and went hello! Erm, no, there was nothing in there. There was afterwards cause I started putting...

David: Sure, That’s a very Neil Gaiman story. All of that is such a Neil Gaiman story

Michael: That’s how it began, yeah.

[ghostyprince]

your pantherverse au is beautiful and now im obsessed with ryan sneaking round trying to surprise and prod “mrrrps” outta shane. fic would be adorable if your still open to pantherverse requests 💖

i hope you like this, thank you for the prompt, it’s so hecking cute❤ also it’s mostly my friend’s @josemorningstar‘s au tbh, i just help in with it. (he’s happy to answer asks about it too!)

read on AO3

Ryan puts a finger to his lips, twisted into a grin, in a shushing motion, and then he taps the flip camera icon on his phone. Shane’s frame from behind pops up on the screen, sitting on his office chair, legs crossed. He’s editing a photo, probably for a thumbnail, and it’s one of those rare occasions when he’s so focused he doesn’t even hear Ryan walk up behind him.

Ryan is moving slowly, putting one foot after the other with the ease of a predator, skilled in sneaking up on his prey. That is Shane and he does not suspect a thing. Perfect.

The footage shows Ryan reaching out, just as carefully, before going in quick, making contact with Shane’s back, splaying out over the thin fabric of his shirt.

Ryan holds his breath as he does so and a heartbeat later—

Yeah, there it is. Shane jumps, a little sound escaping his lips, a sound that makes Ryan’s grin grow impossibly big. It’s one of his favorites, he’d die happily hearing it.

It’s a mrrp, a sound plenty of cats make when touched unexpectedly, but Ryan’s favorite is the one Shane does. So, of course, he tries to scare or surprise him as often as he possibly can.

He only puts it on Instagram because the whole experience of Shane making that noise is a blessing upon this world that needs to be shared. Well, not too often, Ryan would still like to keep most of the occasions he actually managed to surprise Shane into a mrrp to himself.

He stops recording after he zooms in on Shane’s very much unamused expression, accompanied by Ryan’s belly laugh. He barely had time to pull his phone down and duck out of the way of one of the smaller Paddington plushes flying towards him. Another set of giggles bubble up from his chest before he realizes what Shane actually threw at him.

“Hey, I got that from a fan, asshole!” He scoffs, going to pick poor little Paddington up and set him back on his desk carefully.

“That’s what you get for being a dick,” Shane says, chin propped up in his palm, focusing on his laptop again. There is a flush high on his cheeks and Ryan, once again, can’t contain his satisfied grin. Shane is blushing! He’s blushing and he’s fucking sulking, at that!

Easily the best thing he’s seen all day and it’s only 10 AM.

“But it’s so cute, Shane. Gotta share it with the fans!”

“It’s not fucking cute.” Shane murmurs. He sounds like he’s mad but Ryan catches a glimpse at the hint of a smile behind his fingers.

He knew he won immediately.

“I won’t post it if you don’t want me to.” Ryan offers because he’s a good friend. And he also knows how sensitive Shane is about the sounds he makes, due to having broken meows in his cat form. Ryan personally thinks it’s the sweetest thing ever, but Shane is stubborn as hell.

“Go ahead,” Shane says, letting out an exasperated sigh as if he’d be doing a huge sacrifice. What a drama queen. “I suppose at the very least people will see just how gone you are over me.”

He adds, with a smug drawl to his voice, and it had the desired effect because Ryan’s stomach does a little flip. The one specific flip it got used to doing ever since they’ve started playfully flirting with each other, just tethering on the edge of too much or too dangerous. On the edge of their friendship, before it evolves into something more. More serious, romantic, sexual, just more.

Ryan is still trying to catch his breath after that whole interaction as he settles back in his chair, to edit and post the video on Instagram.

He wonders when they will finally say fuck it, and jump over that line between friendship and something more together.

Or, because it’s them, the Ghoulboys, when will one of them finally drag the other over that line?

The next time Ryan gets the urge to make Shane do that wonderful little noise is when they’re filming the newest season of True Crime.

They’re about thirty minutes in and Ryan is reading his script, then coming to a pause to look at Shane and give him an opportunity to react. But Shane isn’t really looking at him. In fact, he’s just staring right in front of him, so deep in thought, Ryan isn’t sure he’s even in his body anymore.

Normally, Ryan would be concerned, and he is, to a degree, but he knows how hard Watcher has them working at the moment, the anxiety, that their whole company might be a flop. It had a toll on both theirs and Steven’s mental health. Not to mention their sleep schedules.

So it’s not unusual Shane is zoning out, especially while Ryan is trying to talk about some pretty heavy murder case. Ryan does see an opportunity, however, to have a little fun with Shane not paying attention to him.

Everyone kind of just stopped, including TJ, but before he could say anything, ask Shane if he’s okay, Ryan is reaching out, pointer finger extended. He holds his breath, the corner of his lips already lifting into a huge grin and then his finger makes contact with the side of Shane’s face.

And Shane jumps. He flinches more than Ryan had ever seen him, and he’d feel a little bad if it weren’t for that ‘mrrp’. It’s so loud, is the thing and it makes Ryan’s heart sing in happiness.

He bursts out laughing, head thrown back and his whole body bowing into it. There is some laughter from the crew too, but Ryan is too busy looking at Shane, all bright smile and shining eyes, despite Shane’s expression being pissed.

Ryan knows it’s not too serious, he has gotten used to that expression, with how much he’s been a brat lately, at every opportunity he gets, to get a reaction, anything out of Shane.

“Very funny, can we go back to the murked guy now?” Shane asks, trying and failing at covering up his embarrassment.

And well, Ryan could point out how he’s been the one zoning out, but it has no use, Shane is annoyed already, and Ryan does know not to go too far sometimes. He’ll make it up to him later by buying him lunch or something.

“Sure thing, big guy.” He says instead, shooting him one last smile, full of warmth and fondness and it might improve Shane’s mood just a little.

It’s going to be another story for Instagram, and then it will remain a video on Ryan’s phone, sitting there for ages, for him to hit up sometimes and smile about, ear to ear. Show Shane, maybe, as they’re chilling together at Ryan’s, or Shane’s, maybe their own apartment together at that point.

Fuck, they’ve only been officially a Thing for a few days and Ryan is already daydreaming about their future, years down the line. Well, can anyone put the blame on him, really? When Shane is sleeping next to him like that, so unbothered, beautiful in the setting sun that filters through the plane’s tiny window.

His face is smooth, and Ryan has the weirdest urge to kiss his nose, or the small cluster of freckles right above his right eyelashes, or Shane’s slightly parted lips, huffing little breaths of air. He thinks it may be the honeymoon phase of their relationship, all of it being so new. Ryan is simply overwhelmed with the fact that he could do all of that now, and more if he so pleases. On the other hand, he doesn’t think he will ever stop being giddy about that. Or how soft Shane looks when he’s sleeping.

Ryan took a picture of him before he started recording too, it’s easily one of his favorite photos of Shane. And then, because Ryan Bergara is an insufferable little shit who has to entertain himself on the boring plane ride, he figured he might as well try to make Shane do that sound again.

The very first time he shared it with the internet in the form of that office video everyone loved it. So, Shane’s little cat noise had been high demand, people kept tweeting and commenting and yelling at him absolutely everywhere to upload another one of those videos.

And well, who is Ryan Bergara to deny them?

He raises the phone higher, to frame Shane perfectly, and carefully removes his hand from where it was resting, on top of Shane’s. Luckily, he didn’t react to that.

Ryan takes a few minutes, to think about how he’d like to approach it. Simply touching Shane has been done, he should do something more original.

He could poke his nose. Or tickle his neck. Ryan hums and his gaze happens to drift over to Shane’s hair. He could just bury his hand in his hair like he would with a cat’s fur.

He starts recording again, and the mic picks up his amused little chuckle.

“Part two for you folks, here we go.” He announces in a hushed tone before carefully reaching out to bury his fingers into Shane’s oh so soft locks, carding through it, maybe way too lovingly for it to be taken as a friendly gesture.

And then, there it is.

Shane lets out Ryan’s favorite noise and Ryan is fucking overjoyed. Up until Shane full-on tilts his head into Ryan’s hand as he lets out an enthusiastic purr, and Ryan forgets to breathe.

“Ohmygod.”

The words are punched out of his lung, in one breath, smushed together, and when Ryan would listen back to his voice later he would realize how in awe and disgustingly in love he sounded just then.

And he wouldn’t have it any other way.

He ends the video, almost abruptly. His other is still brushing through Shane’s hair, subconsciously, scratching at his scalp with gentle fingers. He feels Shane shudder and then brown, sleepy eyes are blinking back at him. Shane’s purrs go quiet but it reverberates through his chest ever so slightly. Ryan can feel it when his hand drops onto Shane’s nape, tangling into the long strands of hair there too, pulling just a bit, just to feel Shane shudder again, hear the soft growl coming from the back of his throat.

“Stop it, you’re gonna make me horny.” He murmurs and Ryan wheezes, but complies. Reluctantly.

“Did you just take a video of me, by the way?” Shane asks, rubbing a hand down his face, tired. Ryan feels it too, the exhaustion as he looks at his friend, business partner, boyfriend. They’ve really been through an awful lot these months, with Watcher, currently shooting the new season of Supernatural.

But they could always take a nap together.

“Yeah, but don’t worry about it. We’ll talk about it later. Go back to sleep, big guy.” Ryan tells him quietly, pocketing his phone and well, who is Shane to say no to that?

So he does, slipping as far down his seat as his Sasquatch legs would allow him, so he can rest his cheek against Ryan’s shoulder, using him as an impromptu pillow. Ryan does not complain at all.

They would talk about the video, later, when they would be in their hotel room.

Well, it isn’t much of a talk at all, it’s more of Shane watching the video while Ryan worries his bottom lip between his teeth. He shouldn’t even be nervous. He’d understand if the video would end up in his drafts for a few months still, years even.

Then Shane looked up at him, with that incredibly annoying, unreadable expression on his face, before leaning in to press a kiss to Ryan’s cheek. “It’s cute, you should post it.”

That’s all he says, in the most nonchalant way possible and Ryan would like to hit him a little bit for that.

Regardless, the video ends up uploaded onto his feed instead, because it deserves to be there, not just for a day, but for a good while, to mark the beginning of a new chapter of sorts.

It deserves a caption just as monumental, so there are no misunderstandings or a flood of questions later on.

ryanbergara: Part 2 of annoying the boyfriend 💖

Ryan wakes to the sunshine burning his eyes, still feeling as sleepy when he and Shane went to bed last night as he checks his phone. It’s way too early in the morning for either of them to be awake.

And yet, here they are. Here is Shane, turned in a way that Ryan can see the expanse of his back Ryan loves to admire. He sweeps his gaze over his favorite freckles on Shane’s back and the dip of his waist disappearing under the covers. The sunlight drapes over Shane’s back invitingly, making it seem warm, soft and kissable.

He kissed all those freckles many times, and he still can’t get enough of the sight of them, not even so many years later.

He still can’t get enough of waking up next to Shane, seeing him first thing in the morning. Ryan’s heart flutters every time, he simply cannot help it.

There is a faint light coming from the other side of Shane, bouncing off of his hair, suggesting he’s on his phone.

And that won’t do, Ryan is awake and he needs attention.

He moves, swiftly fitting himself behind Shane, with one strong arm wrapping around his waist under the covers securely.

“Mrrp!”

The sound lets something loose in Ryan and he melts behind Shane, his hold tightening around him has Shane complaining in the form of a groan.

Ryan doesn’t care one bit though, he’s purring loudly now, much deeper and powerful than Shane’s purrs normally are, considering he’s a panther. It must reverberate through Shane’s whole body because he relaxes, pressed into Ryan’s chest and head falling back on Ryan’s shoulder.

His hand finds Ryan’s, long fingers curling around his, lacing together and knocking their matching silver rings together in the process.

“You’re crushing me, dumbass.” Shane laughs, quietly, fondly, in contrast to his words.

“Mhm, don’t care.” Ryan hums, pressing a chaste kiss on Shane’s shoulder and hugging him even closer, to prove a point.

“Sure you don’t. Go on, suffocate your poor husband if that’s what I deserve! For being your faithful lover for years and—” Shane cuts himself off with another groan of complaint, attempting to turn out of Ryan’s arms when he has the audacity to wheeze into Shane’s neck.

Yeah, Ryan wouldn’t have it any other way.