#people who think they hate each other haven’t been through the part where she has to babysit him

[science-lings]

Yeah I get that Edgeworth and Maya are besties who obsess over the steel samurai but that leaves Phoenix and Franziska time to hang out and you cannot tell me that they wouldn’t be a terrifying duo. They both get hurt in a way that would kill a lesser person and just end up at the courthouse like two days later to save the day running purely on spite and righteous fury. If their goals align they would be unstoppable and I am so serious. They meet up while their spouses are occupied with samurai con to go to the renaissance fair and immediately solve the murder at the renaissance fair.

I need disbarment era Phoenix weirdgirling all over Franziska’s interpol level crime scene. I think he should give her some weed to see if that would make the viewing experience of the steel samurai and other related franchises slightly more enjoyable. I think she needs some guy who can kick down doors to drag around when she doesn’t have Gumshoe access. She bullies him relentlessly and he’s just enjoying the nostalgia of it all.

They’re buddies and no one knows how it happened

[shewrites444]

unexpected - part 1 & 2 [ xavier thorpe x reader]

[ i’m alive! i haven’t posted in ages and i’m terribly sorry. i’ve had this in my drafts for awhile and finally finished it up. it's a part 1 and 2 that just made sense to put in the same post. ]

word count - 5.5k

[ summary - the reader and xavier have despised each other for years, but when she discovers his unexpected attraction to her after being a bit too nosy, their dynamic takes a complete turn. ]

[ warnings - enemies to lovers, angst/jealousy, swearing, dirty talk, oral (f), unprotected sex, bit of degrading. ]

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁part 1 . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁

i was never a big fan of school dances, especially the kind where wednesday addams stole the show for wearing all black, despite that being typical of her, so i didn't really understand what the surprise was for. i had always been fairly close to enid, but when wednesday transfered to nevermore, our friendship diminished in some ways, but i wasn't drastically devastated or anything - i needed to focus on my education anyway. despite my new and improved academic achievements, enid managed to convince me to come to the r'aven, which i did solo, contrary to the norms at nevermore to never attend such a large event alone.

"she looks gorgeous, don't you think?" enid said next to me, a bit of excitement and pride in her voice as she clutched tighter on her glass of punch, watching the black haired girl walk in with tyler, a blank expression on her face.

i shrugged lightly, taking a sip of my drink as i leaned against the empty chair in front of me. "i mean, she's okay." i said plainly. i didn't even mean it out of jealousy or spite, i really didn't view wednesday to be as unique as she was painted to be by people like.. him, yeah, xavier thorpe.

i thought of xavier because as enid spoke in return to my dry comment, i saw the boy staring at wednesday with a bit of disgust, probably at her date, and also with himself. i would hope that was for being so obsessed with someone who never even returned his way-too-obvious feelings, but who was i to mindread?

i laughed lightly, nudging enid to look in xavier's direction, bianca's expression dropping to clear aggravation and jealousy as she watched her date's face. "why do you think she came with him when she probably knew he was going to react like this?"

enid shook her head, frowning a bit. "i don't think she thought about it like that at all. maybe she thought they would get back together."

"yeah, right." i set my glass down on the white table. "xavier has been mentally dick-riding wednesday since she got here. he wants what he can't have like most guys."

"then why doesn't he want you?" enid asked, giggling as she nudged me. i rolled my eyes and pushed her with my own shoulder.

i grin, looking over to her. "because he hates me so much he can't physically imagine fucking me. remember, he said that during our game of truth or dare last semester."

"oh, believe me, i'll never forget that." she takes a large sip from her cup, laughing through it. "i can't believe he said that in front of half the grade."

"i can." i smirk, taking her empty cup and grabbing my own off the table. "i'll be back with some more punch."

she nods and mouths a small "thank you" as i walk off, lightly pushing myself through the crowd of students and round tables, until i reach the trash can and the punch table that was next to it. i began to fill enid and i's new cups before i feel a tall, lanky, and, oh, deathly aggravating, presence next to mine.

i sigh, turning my body towards his as i look up at xavier thorpe. "upset about your public rejection?"

he rolls his eyes, grabbing a cup and beginning to fill his own after i step away from the bowl. "at least i have a date. i think you're the only person here who doesn't."

"maybe i'm untouchable." i tease, sipping from my cup and looking down at him while he shoots me a grossed out look as he leaned down to grab bianca a glass. "perhaps i stand out more than wednesday, but you'd probably say that was impossible. delusion does something to a person, i suppose."

he scoffed, leaning up straight and looking down at me, as if i appeared to be lesser than him. "you're a real asshole, [y/n]. you know that, right?"

i shrug, clearly unbothered by his comment. "it's my best trait."

walking back to enid, i can hear xavier's annoyed groan as he heads to the opposite side of the room to meet a very pissed off bianca. i pitied her, but at the same time, she agreed to go with xavier thorpe, so there wasn't much i could validate from that decision.

i noticed enid flirting with her date, so i set her drink down on the table and walked back towards the entry door, slipping through it silently and down the dark hallway that led to the dorms. everyone was occupied, and i didn't mind being left alone for a few minutes anyway. i was never a big fan of loud music, or parties, so it didn't suit me much there - i was mainly more of an emotional support for enid than anything. i didn't mind it much at all, but she was with her date, and i would never complain about some alone time on campus.

i slowly creaked open an empty classroom door, walking into the room full of desks and lab equipment. i quietly turned on the lamp aside the teacher's desk before sitting down. i reached into my pocket to grab a small bottle of vodka before pouring it into my drink. as i lifted it up to my lips, i hear a loud knock on the open door, making my eyes widen and avert to the glass bottle in my hands, which i quickly tossed into the trashcan before looking to who was at the door.

i rolled my eyes as i saw xavier, taking a gulp of the drink, which i quickly realized i needed for this interaction that was about to occur.

"what brings you here? did you think of any insults that pertained to something relevant?" i asked, turning the rolling chair towards him as i cross my ankles. "if so, i'm happy to hear what you've come up with this time."

"shockingly, i've come to ask if you wanted to drink with me, but i see you've already started by yourself." he says, leaning against the door frame, putting his hands in his pockets as he references the trashcan.

i gasp with heavy sarcasm. "me? drink with xavier thorpe?" i grin, standing up. "did bianca say no since you publicly humilated her by drooling over wednesday addams?"

he pursed his lips together as a red tint collected onto his pale cheeks. "no, i didn't ask. she's been ignoring me anyway tonight."

"can't blame her, i must have rubbed off on her." i say, handing him my drink as he very quickly took a sip. i blink a bit in surprise. "are you trying to get fucked up?"

"why would i not?" he said with a bit of a frustrated tone. "i'm not going to act like i don't feel bad for screwing over bianca like this. she fucked me over by using her powers when we were together, but i didn't really plan on being a dick to her tonight, it just happened."

"it just happened." i say in a low voice. "you really need to think things through before you say or do them, xavier thorpe. can't ask someone to go to a dance with you just because your first date ditched you. especially your ex."

he shook his head, handing me back the half-full cup. "what am i even doing talking to you about this shit? whatever." he said, turning to face the door. he seemed embarrassed. "see you."

i stare blankly at his confusing but unsurprising response. it seemed him opening up to me and me not giving him a sympathetic reaction pissed him off, but i don't really know what he was expecting from me in the first place. we hadn’t gotten along for years. truthfully, i couldn’t even pinpoint when our mutual disliking started, but it had always been around.

“you know, i may not be quite fond of you, xavier, but i’m here if you need brutal honesty.” i raise my tone as he walks off, leaving me with no response. i sigh, now a bit embarrassed with myself for displaying a small portion of kindness to him.

i turn around, finishing my drink off and tossing it in the trash before i walk down the hallway, opposite of the dance, back to my dorm room.

as i approach my room, i glance down to see a dorm key on the floor. my brows raise and i lean down, grabbing the metal and reading the side of it. my eyes widen when i see who’s it is. obviously, no other than xavier thorpe's.

“oh, shit.” i mutter.

i wouldn’t act like i wasn’t a nosy person, especially towards my nemesis - of course i’d be going to snoop in his room.

his dorm was a few down from my own. i quietly unlocked the wooden door, sliding myself through the cracked frame and gently shutting it behind me. flipping the dim lights on, i scanned the messy, yet also oddly organized bedroom. given that xavier thorpe was a strange person, at least to me, i very quickly found something interesting. his sketchbook.

i walk towards his desk, picking up the red journal and flipping through it, seeing well drawn pictures of different animals, instruments, nothing interesting.. until, the last few pages, which were not photos, but writing.

as much as she made my blood boil, her fierce personality grew on me, far more than i expected it to as the years went on. the hate i once possessed so deeply was altered into a deep, truly intolerable lust, one that i could never showcase to her, only myself, surrounded by my own walls and left to think of her alone, touching myself to-

my eyes widened and i shut the book, setting it slowly and quietly on the desk, exactly into its original place. good god, who the fuck was xavier writing a-list fanfiction about?

i bit my bottom lip, shaking my head as i glanced back down at the sketchbook. no, i couldn’t keep reading it. as much as i loathed him, this was personal. i would be drastically upset if someone read information of mine so private. it was like my hand was unconsciously gravitating towards the book anyway.

“i’m such an asshole.” i muttered to myself, opening the pages again, and back to where i left off.

her dominant words, her demands for me to fuck her in such an intimate, yet so dirty way that it was almost unimaginable. my body on top of her own, her arms wrapped around my drenched skin as i pushed myself inside of her warm, tight walls, walls that held me inside and possessed me as her own. [y/n]-

“oh, fucking hell..” i whispered with shock, now slamming the book shut and setting it back in place immediately after reading my name in the following sentence.

it was partially horrifying, but also oddly compelling that xavier thorpe, the same person who would probably stomp on my grave, was writing detailed scenarios of us fucking in his spare time. genuinely, i couldn’t wrap my head around it, but i didn’t have much time to regardless, as i noticed on his alarm clock that it was reaching close to midnight, and the r’aven would be over soon.

i turn the lamp off, the room shading itself into darkness immediately, as i walk to the door. my hand reaches to open it, and it instead comes towards me as xavier walks in. my eyes widen in fear, and i freeze up, the key in my hand as xavier flips the lights on, and stares at me, shocked and more confused than anything.

“you.. you took my spare key?” he asked, shutting the door and leaning against it, crossing his arms.

i shake my head, handing it back to him. “no, i found it on the floor.”

“so, you came to my room, rather than give it to me when you found it.” he said, following my explanation. “trying to rob me of everything i’ve got?” he gestures to his closet. “about the most expensive thing i’ve got is a pair of nikes, so have at it.”

i roll my eyes, my face a heated pink, so much so that i could feel it burning on my cheeks. “no, that wasn’t the plan. more curiosity than anything. truthfully, i just wanted to snoop around.”

it seemed the idea of his sketchbook didn’t even cross his mind. “oh? to find what?”

“well, i found some written porn.” i say quite boldly, looking up at him. “on someone very unexpected, actually.”

i watched his expression drop, and he shook his head in what seemed to be more disbelief than anything. it quickly shaped itself into anger, and some embarrassment. “you read my fucking journal?”

“i didn’t mean to.” i cut him off before he could speak any further. “it’s not like i wanted to voluntarily read that.”

“f-fuck..!” he yells, covering his face in embarrassment, the key slipping out of his palm and onto the wooden floor. “oh, god, you’ve got to leave, [y/n]. please leave.”

“will do.” i sigh, awkwardly nodding, and noticing his shaken up stance. “but you are sort of blocking my exit.”

he moves out of the way as i speak, probably the fastest i’ve seen him move in his life. i walk towards the door, reaching to open it, before i stop. i glance up at him.

“can i ask you what provoked such writing about myself before i go? does my hateful nature turn you on? i didn’t mean it to be that way.”

he shook his head, sighing. he looked up, unable to meet our eyes. he bit the inside of his cheek as he thought. “no, i.. i..” he sighed heavily. “you’re unattainable. someone i can’t ever imagine doing such things with for so many different reasons.”

“well, you clearly can’t get with wednesday either but i didn’t see pages of sexual encounters written about her.”

he steps back, shaking his head once again at my comment. “you’re completely different people, [y/n]. it’s not the same.”

“what’s so different?” i ask, now a bit intrigued by the conversation. i lean against the doorframe. “i’m genuinely curious.”

he finally looked at me, his mouth hung open as he stared at me for a moment. “the difference is you’re the only person i’ve ever wanted to fuck but deeply despise at the same time. it confuses me, and i.. i know it’s so weird, but writing about it was the only way i could… uh, process it, i guess.”

oh, god. his words pierced my core. not in the violent, gorish way i’d prefer them to, but rather a more sexual fashion that created a massive disruption in me. the forming wetness between my legs unsettled me.

“you’re right, it’s time for me to go.” i nod, opening the door as i spoke. “goodnight.”

i walk down the hallway, staring at the floor the entire time until i get to my dorm. i could hear him hesitate before shutting his door after he registered the conversation was over.

i shut the door behind me, quickly taking off my dress and setting it on my desk before getting into my bed, bare aside from my underwear, which i was starting to slide off hastily and dropped to the floor. he wouldn’t know of this. he wouldn’t know i wanted it, too, as strange as that seemed to me. it was something i needed to now keep to myself, just as he did previously. this was it, no more than this. one time touching myself to that asshole. one time.

the sensation was so fresh, so hard to grasp that i felt a sense of euphoria wash over my heated body as i closed my eyes, running my fingers down my stomach and to the slit between my legs, sinking myself into the imaginative state i was in as i ran scenarios through my head, consisting of the most unexpected person they could withhold.

one time. i thought again. one time.

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁ part 2 . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁

as expected, xavier and i's feud was drastically dialed down after that night. the classes we did have together that we used to bicker in were now silent, which was a weird feeling, but not as weird as what happened last weekend. i tried to black it all out of my head, and i was correct about touching myself to xavier thorpe being a one time affair. at least i held myself accountable for my singular mistake, and didn't make it some sort of off-putting habit.

xavier, on the other hand, seems clearly disturbed by our now lessening exchange of words, even if it was a simple insult shot across biology being absent. i could visibly see it on his face when i walked into the room, his eyes darting down to his textbook, and his lips pursed together in what i would assume to still be fresh embarrassment. i felt bad for him in more ways than one, i would admit. it was his personal thoughts, and i did invade them, but also cut off any further explanation he was going to give me that night.

cutting me out of those overbearing thoughts was the bell for last period, the students at my table scrambling their books into their hands as they rushed out of english. i sighed, slowly standing up and beginning to pack my bookbag. i didn't have any classes for the rest of the day, so it was time for me to head back to my dorm and start working on the paper we just discussed for the past hour and a half that i blacked out of.

"can we talk?" i hear faintly from the side of my desk. i look up to lock eyes with xavier, and my face immediately reddens. i press my lips together and breath lightly out of my nose as i think of how to even respond to his sudden question and frankly, startling presence.

"i don't think you're a creep, if that's what you're wanting to talk to me about." i say honestly, slinging my backpack across my shoulder. "i do think this obviously has created much tension between the two of us that will probably never fade out because of how substantial the situation is, but i think it's for the best, regardless. the semester is almost over an-"

xavier sighs and shakes his head. "no, not that - i mean, i, i agree with that, but i just wanted to explain myself. i don't want the last conversation we ever have to be what we had last weekend."

"understandable." i return. "so, uhm, you can come to my dorm if you'd prefer? this doesn't seem like something appropriate to discuss in the commons. but try to walk a few feet behind me so no one sees us together. bad for our image of hate towards one another."

he sounded relieved that i agreed to talk to him, and let out a small chuckle at my demand. he follows me to my room, with distance as directed, and comes in shortly after i do. i set my room key on my desk before gesturing for him to sit on my bed, and i sit against the headboard, facing him while he awkwardly positioned himself at the end of the mattress.

he cleared his throat, resting his nervous hands on his thighs as he looked at the ground. "i just wanted to apologize. i know that made you uncomfortable, and believe me, it made me pretty uncomfortable writing what i did, but at the same time, it's just how i get my words out. i.. i am really sorry if i violated you in a way. i didn't mean for you to ever see that, and i obviously didn't show it to anyone else. i burned it all last weekend so that it's gone and no one will ever see it but me and you."

i blink in surprise at how adamant he was about getting rid of the evidence he probably spent a lot of time writing. i nod, leaning down as i sink into my propped up pillows. "it's okay, i don't feel that you did that to make me feel weird. you obviously never expected me to see it, and i'm sorry for violating your privacy in the first place. i appreciate you getting rid of it."

he gave me a soft, but still uncomfortable smile. "so.. so we're good?"

"sure." i shrug, sitting up as i felt the conversation beginning to wrap up. "back to mortal enemies? or would you prefer strangers?"

he looked caught off guard by my question, his eyebrow raising at my words. "is there an option that combines the two of them in some way?"

"eh." i cross my legs and lean forward as i speak. "perhaps."

i hear the rain begin to beat against my bedroom window, the sky diming to accompany the sudden thunderstorm, then look to xavier in response. "you better go if you want to make it back to your dorm without getting drenched."

"yeah, you're right." he nods, clearing his throat uncomfortably before standing up. he looks to me, watching as i stand up in return. "well, i'm glad everything is okay."

i nod silently, the two of us staring at each other, unable to process a proper way to say goodbye. i mean, how could we with the conversation we just had?

"uh, me too." i cross my arms and shake my head out of the eye contact, looking up to him. "i'll see you tomorrow in biology?"

"yeah." he nods, turning towards the door to walk himself out.

"oh, here." i walk in front of him to grab my key. "i need to unlock the-"

"can i kiss you [y/n]?"

my cheeks redden and i set the key down, turning to face him. i blink in disbelief. "kiss me?"

"i'm sorry, that was a heat of the moment thing, i didn't mean to make this weird ag-"

"no, it's fine." i walk towards him as i cut his stammering words off, leaning up to take his head into my hands and pull him down to my height, pressing his warm lips against my own. he hastily wrapped his arms around my waist, our bodies gravitating to my bed as i push my weight onto his thin, light build, climbing on top of him and moaning lightly into his mouth as i ran my fingers through his long strands of straight hair.

while there was no rush to this sudden circumstance, we were kissing like we were on a time crunch, hands running down each other's clothed bodies and very quickly taking them off. xavier begins to unbutton my school shirt, the nude colored bra that laid behind it exposed to his eyes, which were visibly glued to my chest as he undressed me. i unbuckled his belt in the process, looking down at him while he moved his head closer to my chest, trailing kisses down my heated flesh and lightly brushing my bra out of the way for a moment as his lips kissed my nipple, tongue circling the stimulated bud which only earned a moan from my lips, xavier's body twitching against my own while my pleasure transferred into his own.

i reach down between us to slide my hand into his pants, a bit slowly to make sure he was okay with it, which he very quickly signaled by lightly bucking his hips towards me in return. my hand was met with his erection, straining in his khakis as i jerked it off, moans escaping from his pink lips and vibrating onto my chest which was starting to cover in light hickies and salvia.

he breaks himself away, forcing my body onto the mattress and my hand out of his pants, his own build getting off of me and onto the floor, his knees against the hardwood while he pulled down my skirt, and my underwear, my face dark red as i was nearly naked before him, nothing but my lopsided bra and half buttoned shirt.

"you don't understand how long i've wanted to taste you." he says through a low, seductive yet needy tone of voice. "i've wanted you in my mouth for what feels like ages." he leans down, taking both my thighs into his hands and pulling my bottom up and towards the end of the bed to reach him.

i was speechless, sitting up and staring down at xavier while he began to trail wet kisses into my inner thighs, his mouth soon reaching my pussy and beginning to lick the outside with great tease. i gasped at just his most gentle touch, one hand holding my body propped up as the other reached down to cup the side of his left cheek. he looked up at me, watching as i gave him a small nod to go further.

his tongue attacked my clit, sucking on the bud and my wet skin while one of his hands snaked between my thighs, gently pushing two fingers into my slit, stimulating my body through more ways than i imagined he would so soon. i moaned, closing my eyes and immersing myself into the moment, finding it still hard to believe that his head was between my thighs now when i would've laughed at the thought of this a few days ago.

watching xavier eat me out was so attractive, i almost couldn't comprehend what him fucking me would feel like. he knew what he was doing, holding our eyes as he pushed his fingers inside me, his touch sucking against my clit and twirling around in circles to tease me further, sparks sending themselves to my hot core. it felt never-ending, in a good way, of course, the way he was able to make me feel. the way he made me want him after all this time hating each other was insane. it was rather impressive more than anything.

i leaned forward, watching him pull his lips away from my middle and to my lips, the taste of my own pleasure now against my mouth, his tongue pushing forward and clashing against my own. with his fingers still in me, he adjusted our position, now on his knees in the bed and hovering a bit above me, watching as my mouth hung open at his touch, the feeling of another finger slipping into my tight walls. i could feel myself wrapping around him, which he visibly took note of, as the expression on his face shaped into a smirk, almost like he was proud of himself for the way i reacted to his strengthening touch.

"i've got to stretch you out if you want me to be inside you." he remarks, leaning down to kiss me between the sinful noises that left my lips. "you want me to fuck you like i hate you?"

"shouldn't be a hard thing to do." i grin, pecking his lips, gasping as he curls his fingers inside me at my response.

xavier pulled his wet fingers out, slapping them against pussy as i arch my body in response to the intense touch, my eyes widening as i look at him in surprise. he could only chuckle, standing up and taking his pants and boxers off, his hard length pointing itself towards me as he steps closer again, knees on the mattress and cock aligned with me. he wasn't lying - he was quite long, as i could have imagined by his height and lanky build, but he was thick, too. he was much more than i imagined he was, but i wasn't complaining.

he leaned closer, helping adjust my body to where my feet were now resting on his bare shoulders, spread wide as he pushed inside me, my eyes shutting and mouth opening at the feeling of him slowly pushing inside my body. good god, he hurt, but at the same time, he felt so fucking good.

he held me by my ankles, his hair moving with his rhythm as he kept a slow, intimate pace, watching as my breasts moved with his thrusts, briefly, until he pulled out. i blinked, confused. "is everything okay?"

"you want me to fuck you like i hate you, right, [y/n]?" he asks flatly, his hand running down his cock, before nudging me to flip over.

my cheeks redden and i shake my head. "i would think you'd want to see my expression when doing so."

"who said i wasn't?" he grinned, grabbing me by the hips and tossing me over, pressing his hand on my stomach to arch back before pushing himself back inside.

i gasped, unable to react as he grabbed my face, guiding it towards him and leaning down to where we were able to meet eyes, my hair fallen in front of my face, which he adjusted to fit behind my ears. i could see it in his eyes that he wanted to watch my expression in every way while he pumped his cock inside me, stroke after stroke causing me to moan, my vision clouding with the harder he held my face, the harder he fucked me and made my legs nearly melt at his rough touch.

"you're so fucking beautiful," he coos, placing a rough, wet kiss against my lips. "so fucking beautiful when you take me inside you, i can feel you tightening against me, [y/n]. i didn't think you'd want me around you much longer, but look at you."

"shut the fuck up." i say through pitiful moans, my hands holding the bedsheets as he talked. "you're not always going to have the upper hand."

he scoffed, picking up his pace, pecking my cheek before leaning up, his hand moving to hold the back of my neck while his thrusts only grew strong from his new position.

"says the girl who's letting me fuck her from behind with her ass propped up for my bare cock." he smirked as he heard me groan in annoyance. "you can tell me you like it, no shame in it."

i roll my eyes, now trying to hold my tongue. i figured this wasn't the time or place to cuss out the same person who was actively pounding me with his cock. "just shut up, xavier."

he leaned down to kiss my cheek quickly, his lips leveling to my ear. "i think you know me well enough to know i'm not going to."

he lifted himself back up, holding my ass as he guided me back and forth, the sounds of our wet skin slapping together while i enveloped his cock inside me, the stimulation far too great to not earn us both a very quickly approaching orgasm.

i felt him moan lightly from behind me, our voices, and bodies, and noises, sync together while the room seemed to grow hotter and far too much for either of us to handle, until we both finished, xavier staying in me for a moment before slowly pulling out, his cum leaking lightly between my shaking, red legs as i laid down on my back.

he laid down aside me, reaching over to undo my top completely and help guide my bra off, leaving the two of us now completely naked, lathered in our own, and each other's, sweat. i felt him wrap his arms around me and i rolled my eyes, lightly trying to nudge him off me.

"you're sweaty." i say, watching him laugh at my remark. "what's so funny?"

he stopped me from my squirming, taking my hand into his own and wrapping his arm around my waist. "you'll never be quiet, will you, [y/n]?"

i shake my head, my expression lightening as i look up to him. "i'm not the one who was begging to taste the other. remind me who was on their knees earlier?"

"i hate you." he playfully nudges me, pulling me closer. he sighed, and look up at the wood ceiling, his tone dialing down as he pursed his lips together.

"you know, you physically feel good, but this felt good, too." he gestures to the two of us, which i only blushed in response at.

"xavier thorpe, are you admitting you've peaked an interest in me?" i tease, squeezing his hand in response.

he rolled his eyes, shrugging softly. "maybe so, but no worries, i'll still follow a few feet behind you in the hallway."

"look at you, already listening. guess i really do have the upper hand in this, don't i?" i sit up, watching as he followed my actions. i reach over to hold him by his face, kissing him once again.

he chuckled, holding me by the back of my head as he returned the kiss. he raised his eyebrow, a bit of reflection on his face from what just happened. “why the sudden change of heart towards me?”

“i don’t know.” i shrug, looking from his lips to his eyes. “i guess we’ll have to see how this unfolds over time.”

“i guess so.” he grinned, kissing me once again. “no worries, ill still make sure to embarrass you in some way on monday in biology.”

“you wouldn’t dare.” i smirk, lightly nudging him onto his back as i climb on top of him. “good luck, xavier thorpe.” i begin to trail kisses down his neck, his arms once again wrapping around my waist.

“words of good luck from the enemy? today’s full of surprises.” he teases before sliding his hand between us.

[lives-in-midgard]

Wildest Dreams

(Musician AU Part 1)

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x reader

Summary: When you and your friend are spending time in a bar, you meet Steve Rogers which leads to an incredible and life changing offer.

Word Count: 1250

A/N: Hey! I'm so excited to share the first part of Bucky's musician AU with you. I hope you like it!

Divider made by @firefly-graphics

Masterlist | Musician AU

Almost everyone knows the famous band ‘The Midnight Rockers’. Founded in high school by Steve Rogers with his friends Bucky Barnes, Sam Wilson and Clint Barton. At first, only a few people who attended their small gigs or who knew their YouTube videos listened to them. Until they were one day found by the music producer and manager Tony Stark. Now they are one of the most famous bands from all around the word.

Even though they have a lot of fans, there are still people who don’t know them or who hate their music. You’re one of those people who knows their songs, but you’ve never really been a big fan or followed their carrier.

Until one special day.

But to get to this day, the band had to go through a big change.

It all started when they went on tour earlier this year. Clint began to distance himself from the others and after three months he suddenly told the others that he wants to leave the band. Steve, Sam and Bucky were so confused and tried to talk to Clint, but his decision was final. The manager of the band was very angry, especially because it was during their tour. He decided that it would be the best to put the tour on hold until everything was sorted out.

So the band went back to New York, even though they would rather be on tour. It broke their hearts to upset their fans like that, but they hope to continue the tour soon. Steve suggested that the band could just stay with the three of them, but Tony insisted on finding a new band member.

It’s been two months since Clint left the band and they still haven’t found a new band member. It’s harder than Tony thought and it takes a lot of effort to find someone who fits into the band.

It was on a Saturday night when you and your best friend Kate decided to go to Romanoff’s bar. You enjoyed your time there and after a while Kate thought it would be fun to sing karaoke. You couldn’t resist, especially because you love to sing. Music has always been something very important in your life. It has always been one of your wildest dreams to be a singer and songwriter one day. You sang one of your favorite songs and had a lot of fun.

When you sat down at your table, you noticed a cute looking guy with blonde hair looking at you from across the room. He seemed somewhat familiar, but you didn’t know who it was. Suddenly he stood up from his chair and walked towards you.

“Omg, that’s Steve Rogers.” Kate said excited.

“You know him?” You asked not sure who he was.

“You’re joking, right?” She asked and you shook your head.

“This is Steve Rogers from the band ‘The Midnight Rockers’.” She explained and you finally knew where you must have seen him before.

“Hey ladies.” Steve said when he stood in front of your table.

“Hey.”

“I heard you sing and think that you have a really special voice. You probably know that my band is looking for a new band member, and I think you have the perfect voice for the band.”

“Really?” You asked, not sure if this was some kind of joke or if he was really serious.

“Yeah, definitely. I would like to invite you to a band rehearsal.”

“Wow, I…I don’t know what to say.”

“Just say yes.” Kate whispered next to you and Steve chuckled.

“You don’t have to decide now. I’ll give you my phone number so you can call me when you have thought about it.”

“Okay, that’s a good idea.” You said and handed him your phone so he could type his number in. When Steve was finished, he handed it back to you and you saved his name to your contacts. Then you said goodbye to each other and when he left, you couldn’t believe what just happened. Being a singer has always been your dream and now you’re one step closer to making your dream come true.

You thought about it for a few days and even though you weren’t sure if you should be in this band, especially if you would even fit in, you decided to call Steve and told him that you would like to meet the others. The thought of living your dream as a singer gave you butterflies, and you had to at least try it.

The day came, and you drove to the location Steve told you. You were nervous and a bit scared. Would the other band members even like you? What if you would embarrass yourself because of your nervousness? Those were the main thoughts running through your mind, but they all faded away when you parked your car there and took a deep breath.

When you knocked on the door, Steve opened it with a big smile and greeted you with a hug.

“You don’t have to be nervous.” Steve said because he probably noticed how you were feeling. He led you further into the room where two other guys were. One was sitting at the drums and the other one had a guitar.

“Guys, that’s y/n.” Steve said, and they both looked at you.

“Y/n, this is Sam and Bucky.” He said, pointing at them. When you saw Bucky, you froze.

“You?” You both said at the same time.

This is your upstairs neighbor, Bucky Barnes.

The neighbor who once played his guitar so loud in the middle of the night that you had to knock on his door and asked him to be quiet.

Then he promised you not to play at night anymore.

Bucky started playing in the afternoon, and you listened to him from your balcony.

This was the highlight of your day until one day he suddenly disappeared.

You missed hearing him sing and seeing him on the hallway.

Now he’s back, and it turns out he is in the band ‘The Midnight Rockers’.

“You know each other?” Steve asked and Bucky nodded with a slight smile.

You talked with them for a while and told them that you still weren’t sure if you fit into the band. After a while they decided to try to sing a song with you. Before it was your part to sing, you looked over to Bucky who was playing the guitar. When he noticed that you were looking at him, he gave you a comforting smile. When you began to sing his smile got bigger.

“Wow, your voice is really special.” Bucky said and you began to blush.

“And it fits good with ours.” Sam said and Steve nodded.

“So, what do you say…would you like to be in our band?” Steve asked and you hesitated for a second before saying yes.

“Okay, that’s great, then we call our manager.” You stayed for a few more minutes before you decided to leave. When you went outside you smiled and were really happy to be in the band and you’re curious to see what’s going to happen next.

“Are you sure she’s the right person for the band?” You suddenly heard Bucky ask, but you couldn’t really understand what Steve or Sam were saying.

Why did he ask that? You thought he would like to have you in the band? Just like Steve and Sam? But looks like he doesn’t want you in the band.

Taglist:

@marvelogic | @eviebuggg | @buckys-wintersoldier | @nicoline1998enilocin | @kandis-mom | @sergeantbarnessdoll | @noellez-best-life23 | @sgtgarricks | @ratchildspartan | @scott-loki-barnes |  @mrs-bucky-barnes-73 | @mrsbuckybarnes1917 | @brnesblogposts

@beaubbdoll

[demonicchicken1121]

Alastor, Rosie, and Cannibal Town: an Analysis (I’m fucking at it (Alastor Posting) again)

Ok I know that a lot of people have already been talking about this, but I really want to analyze Alastors behavior in cannibal town and how it’s so much different than how he behaves literally anywhere else.

Alastors true motives, personality, opinions, etc are widely debated in the fandom. Does he actually care about Charlie or the hotel? What’s his beef with Lucifer? Why did he make a deal and who was it with? Al is such a mysterious and closed off character, and his demeanor changes so frequently that no one in or out of universe really knows much about him. I personally think that the closest we get to seeing Alastor in his truest and most authentic self is when he’s in cannibal town.

From the moment they arrive, Alastors demeanor changes dramatically, even from a few moments before, when Charlie was venting about her relationship issues. He seems genuinely excited to be there and see Rosie, to the point where he seems to forget he brought Charlie here for a reason (hell I think he forgets Charlie is even there at a few points.)

Al and Rosie HAVE seen each other since he returned to hell, at the overlord meeting, but they didn’t really have the time to interact. Even so, they are so in tune with each other. This man was gone for seven years and here they are gaslight gatekeep girlbossing like nothing happened.

But once they actually have the opportunity to interact outside of the overlord meeting they’re super excited to catch up. The only other time he shows this much enthusiasm to see someone is with Mimzy, but things quickly goes south when she puts the hotel is danger. Alastors friendship with mimzy feels very onesided, and it seems that she only shows up when she needs something. While Alastor and Rosie clearly ask each other for favors, it feels a lot more equal in a way where they each get an equal amount of benefit.

And while we haven’t seen much of them yet, I get the vibe that they hang out in their free time and respect each others boundaries and schedules. I think Al went through cannibal town hoping to see her in the prequel comic, but figured she was busy after the extermination and instead asked some of the residents to say hello on his behalf. But that’s just a theory, a gam-

Also just a little thing I noticed, when rosie is joking about Charlie being too young for Alastor, Charlie looks visibly annoyed, but Alastors body language and expression don’t change. He tends to react relatively strongly when anyone (Angel) makes a move on him or assumes he’s dating anyone, but I think he knows Rosie well enough to know she’s joking.

Alastor lets his guard down so much in this part of the episode. He’s really in his element and his behavior seems so natural and genuine.

I love how he’s so willing to just roast Susan. Every iconic duo has that one person they fucking hate and will not be subtle about how much they fucking hate them. It’s especially funny with alastor, who’s usually really pretentious and passive aggressive when he insults someone, but with Susan it’s just

“✨Ornery old bitch?✨” also this is the only time in the entire series that alastor swears in a genuinely humorous way. In almost every other example, he is trying to intimidate someone or piss them off, and also when his staff was broken.

And speaking of his staff, I think it was actually a big deal that Alastor let Charlie use it, even tho it was for a very short time. This does show that whether or not he actually cares about her, Alastor does have a certain amount of trust and respect for Charlie. Despite that, I don’t think he would have done this if he wasn’t in cannibal town and with Rosie. The staff is clearly very important to him and likely holds some amount of his power, given how he reacted when it was broken.

As weird as this sentence is out of context, I think Alastor feels very safe in cannibal down. Rosie and probably the other cannibals genuinely like and respect him. it speaks volumes that not only he let Charlie use his staff, but he put himself in the position that would leave him vulnerable to Rosie if Charlie were to turn on him. While he knows it’s highly unlikely that would happen, I think it’s still worth noting that he intentionally left himself in such a vulnerable position in cannibal town and nowhere else.

Something else interesting I noticed, is that “ready for this” is one of the only songs that Alastor is interacting with another character, and isn’t competing for the spotlight. He is walking all over Vox in “stayed gone”, and getting walked all over by Lucifer in “Hells greatest dad”, but here, he’s very in tune with everyone else. He and Rosie are on equal footing and he feels secure enough to fade into the background a bit, harmonizing with the cannibals and letting Charlie take the lead.

So yeah, I feel like Cannibal town is alastors home in hell. His relationship with Rosie is probably the most positive relationship he has in the whole show. I think viv has mentioned that Alastor wasn’t a cannibal before he died, and I’m not sure if that’s still canon, but if it is, I can definitely see him becoming a cannibal when he became friends with Rosie. I can also see Rosie being one of his first friends in hell, maybe they even rose to power together. I’m clearly getting into some more speculative headcanons because I do what I want, but I’m putting them in their own section.

Now for headcanons with little to no substantial evidence ✨✨✨

I do actually really like the idea that they became friends very quickly and rose to power together. I like the idea that they were friends before Alastor became this super powerful force in hell. It also makes sense that he would trust someone who wanted to be his friend back when people weren’t constantly asking for favors or testing his power. Bc I do think that there was a short period of time between him arriving in hell and rising to power. (I have a lot of ideas about how he got his powers which probably will get its own post, but to brief, he wasn’t super powerful when he arrived in hell.) it makes sense that him and Rosie would have become friends in that period.

When he did start rising to power, I think Rosie would have guided him, given that he was a relatively new sinner. She would help him find overlords to target, possibly even letting him recruit cannibals to help him take them down. After he was finished broadcasting their screams, he would return their bodies to Rosie for her to sell. Maybe any cannibals who helped him would get discounts or first pickings.

This makes sense to me bc not only would it help explain why Alastor has never seen Rosie as a rival or a target, but also it would help explain why they’re so close. Nothing builds a friendship better than overthrowing incredible forces of power. Also they totally square dance on the weekends.

Viv please I need an episode that’s nothing but these two dicking around in cannibal town for twenty minutes.

[christinesficrecs]

Hi Christine, I know this is a long shot but long story short - lost my saves file a while ago and cannot find many of most favourite fics, I have countless quotes saved from them. I am sharing some with you in hopes people recognise the fics they're from if you post this. I will love you forever.

Derek’s first kiss in four years tastes like fresh-squeezed orange juice and makes his stomach flip like the drop in a rollercoaster. Stiles holds him close like he’s thanking him.

About the summer he spent in Ireland because there were pictures of his mom posed in various tourist sites at Dublin and Dingle and the Giant’s Causeway--places that he wanted to experience personally since he never got to ask her first-hand.

Derek looked at him for a moment, and wow, okay, this was why people wrote songs about love and painted pictures and wrote poetry, because he was pretty sure that he was falling in love with Derek Hale if only because of the guy's beautiful eyes and earnest expressions and his everything. God.

In some ways Stiles has done a lot of growing up since then, but a part of him thinks he’ll always be that scrawny, ridiculous kid at heart, whose greatest joys in life were Froot Loops, cheesy disco tunes, and masturbation.

Stiles gets back from his year abroad in Hungary with more muscles and the first of his tattoos, a knotted rope that runs the length of his spine.

Hey, Derek, can you do me a solid? Nothing serious, just, you know, screw my brains out, that’s all.

He meets Stiles’ gaze from where he's leaning against the back wall, his eyes catching glints of light amid the shadows. Certain people are just meant to live under the open sky.

Whatever he says afterwards, whatever happens between them, there will always be this, the long late afternoon with the sun skidding red in the west, and he will always know what Stiles looked like the first time someone filled him up to the hilt. There are no acrobatics. Nothing fancy happens. Derek feels like the ocean breaking helplessly on the shore, the tide rising, spilling him over.

there’s something about the shape of him, the way he’s huge and solid and beautiful and always thirty seconds away from admitting total defeat that rubs Stiles raw and tender.

“People are so exhausting,” he murmurs, and Stiles is glad to know it: that he isn’t people, that he counts as a kind of between places, maybe even as home.

Updating with the ones that magv1 found. Thank you!!!

Hot Single Dad Derek Hale by WhoNatural | 13.3K | Explicit

Wherein Derek is a Hot Single Dad, possibly with a little case of martyrdom, and Stiles is the newest client at his publishing house who really just wants to make him happy. Preferably while they're both naked.

^^^^^ #1 & 2

But Then What... by Stoney | 24.3K | Explicit

Senior year is almost over, and all Stiles needs to do is keep his head down to survive. A teacher calls in a favor, leaving him stuck tutoring Derek Hale, one of the most popular jocks in school and a member of a group of douchecanoes who have bullied Stiles for years. He's someone Stiles totally hates. Totally. Like, doesn't like him even a little bit. DEFINITELY isn't attracted to him.

Except that is a total lie. Fuck his life, seriously.

^^^^^ #3

My Life is not a Horror Movie, Derek by DiscontentedWinter | 38.9K | Explicit

Stiles keeps dreaming of people in robes with knives. With chanting. In Latin. And he mentioned the knives, right? That can't be good.

^^^^^ #4

i need your sway by thatworldinverted | 11.1K | Explicit

Stiles always figured it would be Scott who saw him through his first heat. They pinky-swore on it, in fact, when they were eleven and newly-presented. There haven’t exactly been an abundance of offers between then and now.

What there is now, though, is the pack, and pack takes care of each other.

^^^^^ #6

Sucker Love by whiskey_in_tea | 17.9K | Explicit

Kate sits up and narrows her eyes at him. “Page 72,” she says. “Why I Plan to Wait, by Stiles Stilinski.”

The spread is hilariously cliched: a full page picture of a pale, pretty boy with a wide-eyed blonde girl walking on the beach, the two of them holding hands and staring into the waves, probably thinking wistfully of the sex they aren’t having. Derek skims the text briefly. “Speaking up about the importance of virginity!” he exclaims. “Reclaiming chastity a a masculine virtue. Our friend Stiles sure is brave.”

“See, I was thinking he might make an interesting challenge,” Kate says lazily. “And he’s surprisingly attractive, don’t you think? Such long fingers. And that mouth.”

^^^^^ #8

[sturnsluv]

meddle about pt. 1

pairing: matt sturniolo x fem!reader

summary: when Y/N finds herself falling for her big brothers life-long enemy, will she choose love or family?

warnings: mentions of blood

⭒˚.⋆

3:43 pm

I watched Matt storm off, blood dripping from his nose, and chest heaving like some sort of MMA fighter after a match. My head whipped back towards my brother, who stood there like he was some sort of god, shoulders broad, face solemn, and that same bloody nose leaking wine-looking stains all over his white shirt.

“What the hell Jack!” I shouted. This is all they ever do: fight, fight, and fight. My brother Jack and Matthew Sturniolo have hated each other for as long as I can remember, which I completely understand. Matt’s an insufferable dickhead with an ego the size of the Titanic. Despite my best efforts to avoid him, I always manage to find myself around him, caught in the crossfire of their endless feud.

Matt’s brother Nick has been my best friend since 2nd grade when he punched a boy who made fun of the tiara I wore to school that day. Since then, I have been forced into a house that always consists of Matt. Although my hatred partly came from my loyalty to my big brother, Matt’s attitude had a way of making me hate him all by myself. Like all the times he’s made snide comments about Jack’s ability on the hockey team. Or the way he looks at me like his eyes are bullets piercing into my skin with every remark he makes. 

“What? he was being a dick!” Jack hollered back, his face contorting with a mix of confusion and anger. His short, permed, brunette hair fell messily in front of his eyes, and the back stuck up all which ways. He stood tall like Dad, but his green eyes came from our Mother. 

“Mom is going to kill you Jackson,” I say through gritted teeth, my frustration with their constant fighting boiling over. Mom had explicitly warned Jack that the next fight with Matt would result in him being done with hockey, but it seemed like these two senseless men couldn't keep their hands off each other, no matter the consequences.

Jack only had the energy to roll his eyes at me and stumble away, most likely to go clean up his battered face. I sighed in frustration, feeling the weight of our recurring “Sturniolo” drama settling in once again. Ignoring the turmoil brewing inside me, I reached down to my back pocket and pulled out my phone, immediately clicking on Nick’s contact.

Y/N:

our stupid brothers fought again 🥱

nick😛:

you HAVE to be fucking kidding me.

Y/N:

I wish I were bro

Nick😛: 

at this point I think they’re secretly in love and this is all a cover up

I giggle to myself cause honestly, he’s probably right. Nick always has the perfect way of making me laugh, and he’s one of the only people in my life I never feel judged around. Nick has held me as I cried and laughed with me hours later over the stupid boys who’ve broken my heart. He’s even forced Matt to pick me up after I had been stranded at parties or events. Overall, he’s always been there for me. I have other friends of course, but those friendships have never felt real to me, always one-sided on my part. 

 Looking up I slide my phone back into my pocket and begin the most dreadful trek across the football field. Okay, that was dramatic but looking for Jack isn’t exactly something I'm up for right now. Tonight is going to be restless from the amount of bickering I'm about to hear from him and Mom. The house was already loud enough with Mom and Dad fighting. Ever since I was eight years old, Mom and Dad haven’t gotten along. They’ve tried almost everything to mend their marriage. Even couples counseling, but nothing ever worked, so me and Jack just have to deal with it.

 I sigh to myself as my mind races, and the gentle trudge across the field continues toward the locker room, where I assume I’ll find my brother. But the fighting won't even be the worst part of it all. The worst part will be tomorrow when I'm over at Nick’s house, hearing Matt bitch and moan about Jack. I swear every time I’m around him I have to fight the urge to strangle him. All he talks about is the stupid cheerleaders he’s hooking up with, or lacrosse this, hockey that. His voice is unbearable and it’s genuinely the reason I question if I want to go over every time Nick asks. 

Suddenly I'm broken out of my thoughts when I hear my name called from behind me. I turn around and see the one and only center of my anger. Matt. His voice cuts through the tension-filled air like a knife. His expression is unreadable, but his body language exudes a mix of exhaustion and hesitation.

“What do you want?” I yell back at him. He’s standing about twenty feet away from me with the same bloody face he had about thirty minutes ago. My face drops when he starts to jog towards me and I’m filled with a feeling of ‘please leave me alone.’ 

As Matt gets closer the sound of his sneakers hitting the wet, sloshy turf rises, and so does my frustration. “You have a ride home?” He breathes out, panting lightly. Matt places a hand on his knee to steady himself, while the other scratches the back of his neck. His face is flushed and red. The fight obviously damaged him, and he looked nervous to be standing in front of me.

“That’s seriously all you wanted?” My face gains a snarky scowl and I look him up and down, noticing the way his hand is running through the hairs at the back of his neck and the way he lightly taps his foot on the ground. It's apparent he’s on edge, which I assume is because of the fact he just beat my brother's ass, but I couldn’t care less about either of them right now. I mean I do love my big brother, but not when he’s acting so prideful after doing something so wrong. Even if he wasn’t the one to initiate it. Matt’s loud but unsteady voice cuts off my thoughts.

“Well I just assumed Jack left, and Nick's order is to always look after you, even if I want to kick your face in,” He exclaims as he smiles sarcastically at me. I scoff and look away mumbling a quick ‘I’m good’ under my breath. I hear him start to speak, but I cut him off by turning around and continuing my path toward the locker room. I assume at that moment he turns as well, going off in search of his car.

As I walk away my feet drag against the turf, little beads coming up beneath me and I’m overwhelmed with strange, alluring thoughts of Matt’s bloody face. 

⭒˚.⋆

11:47 pm

God, will they ever shut up? I listen to Mom’s and Jack’s muffled voices from the kitchen. Tossing and turning in my bed, I put my fluffy, pink pillow around my ears to attempt to surround myself in silence. That doesn’t work as the pillow is too thin, and the yelling continues pounding into my eardrums. 

When the school called earlier and told our parents what happened, Mom was pissed immediately. Even though the fight was after school hours, it still took place on “school property” so both Jack and Matt ended up suspended. On any normal occasion, I’d be delighted to hear about Matt’s suspension (as it happens quite frequently), but now that Jack’s involved I think I might go insane. His presence in the chaos only amplifies the tension in our home.

But I keep thinking about Matt, and what he said to me. He’s usually not the type of guy to walk over offering any type of help. He’s one of those mysterious types of guys who always get into trouble, even though you barely see them talk. I think it’s all an egotistical act he does to seem tough. Whenever I’m at Nick’s he’s hidden away in his room playing video games made for children. It’s so out of character of him to even think of me and the more I contemplate, I can’t help but grin. Sitting up on my mattress I slap my face. What the fuck am I thinking? Nothing about Matt Sturniolo should be making me smile. Not the way his hair flops in front of his eyes, or the way his mouth lifts to the side when he smiles. Even the way his arms flex when he wraps his hands around a lacrosse stick. Ew! What am I doing? 

I lay my head back on my pillow, letting the thoughts of Matt drift out of my mind. My brain starts to calm and just as I’m about to fall asleep- Ding! 

“Ugh,” I verbally groan at the sound of my phone snapping me back awake. I reach my hand out and turn it over, and the bright screen practically blinds me. As my eyes start to adjust I’m finally able to see what the message is.

Matt Sturniolo: 

hey I gotta ask you something

⭒˚.⋆

a/n: first chapter lmk what you guys think! 😊 comment to be on my taglist!

[chicgeekgirl89]

Festive Friends- Read on AO3

Rating: T

Words: 8600

This one is for @strandnreyes as part of the @tarlos-santa 2023 exchange! I chose the prompt: AU - Carlos and TK unknowingly have each other for the office secret santa exchange. Up to you if they’re pining idiots, “enemies”, secretly dating, or anything else! Hope you enjoy and have the most festive of holidays!

“Good morning Mr. Reyes.”

Carlos looks up to find the office intern, Mateo, standing cheerily next to his desk, a stack of envelopes in his hand. “Good morning Mateo. And again, you can call me Carlos. Mr. Reyes really isn’t necessary.”

“Sorry Mr. Reyes, I’m just not really used to being like, a real adult yet I guess,” Mateo says sheepishly. 

Carlos keeps a chuckle to himself and doesn’t admonish the kid again. “I understand. Whatever you feel comfortable with is fine.”

“Cool. Thanks Mr. Reyes. I brought your mail over for you.”

“Thank you,” Carlos says, accepting the stack from him.

“Can I get you anything? A coffee? Oh! I think Mr. Strand has some new kind of energizing smoothie or something in the break room. Although, it looked kinda gross to me,” Mateo says.

The thought of that smoothie sends a shiver down Carlos’ spine. He hasn’t known Owen Strand for very long, but his health nut tendencies have quickly become too much for Carlos’ taste. “No, that’s okay. I don’t need anything right now. Besides, your job here is to learn about the business, not fetch everyone’s coffee.”

“Right. Yes. Learning. I love learning all the things. Hey, are you coming to the office tree lighting on Friday afternoon? I heard they’re gonna have those little pigs in a blanket.”

Carlos’ eyes dart back to his screen and the half finished email staring at him. “Um, yeah. I’ll be there for a little bit.”

“Awesome!” Mateo seems genuinely thrilled and Carlos once again has to bite back an amused smile. The kid is ninety nine parts enthusiasm and one part overly helpful. “Well I’ll let you get back to it. Lots of…what exactly does HR do?”

“Emails,” Carlos says. “Lots of emails.”

“Right. Sounds fun. Good luck with that!”

Mateo sends him a parting wave and then disappears around the side of his cubicle. 

Things have been absolutely crazy at PD and Sons since they merged with 126 Designs a few months ago. Owen Strand had been brought in to manage the merger and insisted on hiring a significant number of new staff. Onboarding the new hires like Mateo has been a ton of work, especially since Owen insisted on being extremely involved in the entire process. Carlos has been in non-stop meetings for weeks and today is the first day he hasn’t felt completely overwhelmed in forever.

He flips through the stack of mail, tossing a few random flyers in the recycling, and setting aside the important envelopes to open later. He wrinkles his forehead when he finds a folded up piece of red paper at the bottom of the stack. When he opens it his eyes immediately widen in horror.

What. The. Hell?

“Lexi.” He stands up and looks down into the cubicle next to him where his work wife is busy with some kind of design project. “Why did I just get a paper telling me who my Secret Santa is this year?”

“I signed you up because I knew you wouldn’t do it otherwise. It’s the season of giving and part of that means giving up your Grinchy ways and pretending like you’re interested in getting to know all the new people in the office,” Lexi says without looking up at him.

His jaw drops. “Okay, first of all, I’m not uninterested in getting to know them. I just haven’t had time to get to know them. And secondly, I hate Secret Santa. Nobody ever really knows what to get you, so you end up with all this random crap and candy that you don’t want and it all sits in a drawer for three or four years until finally you throw it out.”

She finally stops and turns to look at him. “Wow. Okay Uncle Scrooge. First of all,” she echoes him, “it’s not Secret Santa, it’s Festive Friends. Not everybody celebrates Christmas. Get your terminology right. And secondly, it’s not about getting good gifts, it’s about spreading joy for the holiday season. So take the Christmas tree out of your ass and start fa la la-ing with the rest of us.”

“Lexi,” he grinds out her name between his teeth and quickly glances around to make sure no one is in earshot. “I got T.K.”

Lexi is the only one in the office who knows what an incredible disaster meeting T.K. Strand has been for his life. A week after the PD Austin and 126 Designs merger the entire office had gone out for drinks. One thing led to another, which led to another, and ultimately ended up with T.K. very naked in Carlos’ bed. 

They’d been incredibly hot and incredibly heavy for a couple weeks after that, sneaking around together, making out in the supply closet, booty calling each other in the dead of night, and Carlos had been so ridiculously happy. T.K. Strand had turned him into a horny freaking teenager.

And then he’d made the mistake of surprising T.K. with dinner. He’d thought it would be romantic. That it might move them from booty call status into something a little bit more permanent. 

But T.K. had freaked out, stormed out, and shut Carlos out of his life. Thank god his cubicle is all the way around the corner on the other side of the building. They barely have to see each other except for the occasional awkward brush in the break room or men’s room.

Carlos’ heart has been more broken than he’d like to let on, not to mention his ego is bruised too. The whole thing has made getting to know the other people from 126 Designs like Marjan, Paul, Nancy, and Judd very awkward.. They’re T.K.’s friends. And he doesn’t want to piss T.K. off anymore than he already has. 

Of course he has to interact with T.K.’s father, Owen Strand, he is the manager after all, but other than that he’s kept everyone else at an extremely polite and professional distance.

So finding T.K.’s name in his hands is like a punch in the gut.

“Good,” Lexi says, surprising him. “You’ve been pining for him for weeks anyway. Might as well do something about it.”

“Lexi, this guy hates my guts,” Carlos says. “He doesn’t want presents from me.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t hate you. You’re Carlos Reyes. No one hates you.”

“Please switch with me.”

“No.”

“Lexi!”

“No! I got Paul. I already have ideas. I’m not switching. It’s only three gifts, you’ll be fine.”

“Three?! I thought Secret Santa was only one gift!”

“God, do you even read your email? It’s three gifts in the week leading up to the holiday break. This will be good for you. Now go away. I’m working.”

Carlos sinks back down into his chair, misery settling in his stomach. This is going to be absolute torture.

He takes another look at T.K.’s scrawl. His writing looks hurried in a way that suggests he’s so excited that he can’t be bothered to slow down and shape his letters more carefully. It has that same kind of frenetic, joyful energy that drew Carlos to him in the first place. Now the only energy he exudes toward Carlos is coldness.

Carlos catches himself tracing his fingers over the letters of T.K.’s name and balls them into a fist before forcing himself to read T.K.’s answers to the Festive Friends questionnaire. T.K. has written down that he likes sour candy, Harry Styles, boba, and interesting tea flavors. He doesn’t like black licorice, the Mets, or anything with alcohol. 

Carlos frowns at that. He doesn’t remember T.K. mentioning anything about alcohol during their weeks together. But then again, they didn’t exactly spend much time talking. Their mouths had been occupied with other things.

It feels unfair to have this scrap of T.K., to get this little glimpse into his life. These are things he doesn’t want Carlos to know. He made that clear when he stormed out the door of Carlos’ condo and left nothing behind except Carlos’ fractured heart. 

He takes a breath and squares his shoulders. It’s just a stupid office tradition. They’re colleagues. They’re going to have to become cordial at some point. Maybe this is how he can start to smooth things over. Besides, it’s not like he has to talk to the guy. That’s literally the point. To keep it secret.

This is going to be fine.

It is not fine. It’s not fine because Carlos is the type of person that agonizes over gifts. And in this case, there’s even more pressure because the gifts have to be perfectly impersonal so they don’t say, “Your dick was life changing and I don’t think I’m ever going to recover because now you hate me and I don’t really know why.” He’d much rather they say, “I’m fine and I don’t ever think about you and that thing you did with your tongue that one time.”

Ugh.

He arrives Monday morning the week before Christmas with a gift bag in hand, a Yankees baseball cap tucked inside. It’s a lame gift. Perfectly impersonal. And the rest of his gifts for the week aren’t much better. There’s a small part of him berating himself for not doing a better job. He could at least try. The guy broke up with him, he didn’t murder anyone.

But then he remembers how miserable he was in the days after T.K. had stormed out. Whatever. He didn’t sign up for this anyway. T.K. deserves his boring gifts.

The office is quiet as he makes his way to T.K.’s cubicle. Even just the sight of his desk makes Carlos’ heart ache a little. There’s a picture pinned to his bulletin board of T.K. with their other co-workers, Marjan, Paul, Judd, Mateo, Nancy, and Tommy all smiling and having fun, clearly out for a night on the town together. He’d known 126Designs was small and that was part of the reason for the acquisition; to bring on a tightly knit team to help their own, but seeing T.K. so happy with them all doesn’t really feel great.

He’s been so preoccupied by his own shopping that he completely forgot that he is also getting gifts until he steps into his cubicle and sees a bright green bag with little white Christmas trees all over it. He inspects it carefully, relieved to find there’s no glitter anywhere. 

He hates glitter.

There’s a little card attached to the handle and when he opens it it reads “Hope you have a Write Christmas- FF.” It takes him a second to figure out that FF must mean Festive Friend.

He carefully extracts the tissue paper and looks into the bag. It’s office supplies. Pens, post-its, a new stapler, blue paperclips, and a ball of rubber bands.

The pun on the card makes sense, even if it is as terribly lame as the gifts inside. At least it’s practical. He can always use new pens.

“Hey!” Lexi pokes her head in. “Ooh what’d you get?”

He shows her the bag and she nods in approval. “Your Festive Friend knows you like office supplies. Nice.”

“If you’re expecting a thank you for going behind my back on this, you’re going to be waiting a long time,” Carlos tells her as he sits down and opens up his laptop.

“Pretty sure people with that attitude get coal in their stocking,” she tells him, flipping him off before heading to her own cubicle.

It’s midway through the morning and Carlos is about to make yet another phone call when Owen Strand steps into the middle of the bullpen. “All right, attention everyone!” he calls.

The ambient sound of typing and low chatter ceases. “Thank you,” he says. “I just wanted to remind everyone that we have our first team building activity this afternoon. So if you have anything scheduled this is your last chance to rearrange. Mandatory fun is in store for all!”

Carlos bites back a groan. He is really not into mandatory office fun. Especially when it means he’ll be in close proximity to T.K. But he’s also not one to flaunt the rules, so he’s going to have to suck it up and deal.

No one has been allowed in the conference room all morning and when one o’clock rolls around Owen waits at the door with a massive grin on his face. The man is clearly thrilled with whatever he’s cooked up to torture them today.

When Carlos walks through the door he sees why. The tables have been covered in red plastic tablecloths and every two feet or so sits a pile of materials like graham crackers, marshmallows, frosting, and candy. It’s immediately obvious how they will be team building today.

“All right everyone!” Owen says when they’re all assembled. “As you can probably guess our team building activity for today has taken a turn for the festive. And I’ve taken the liberty of assigning you all a partner to work with. Each team will be assembling a pre-determined part of our gingerbread village. Paul, you’re with Marjan.”

They immediately turn and high five, clearly thrilled. 

“Nancy with Lexi, Judd with Tommy, Mateo with me,” Owen flashes him a smile and Mateo lets out a whoop.

Carlos’ stomach drops. That leaves him with—“T.K., you’ll be with Carlos.”

Fuck.

“Send one person to grab your pre-assigned building assignment! Remember this is not a competition. We’re all working together to build our village. Just like it takes a village to run a company.”

There’s a brief silence in which everyone internalizes what a dumb, schticky thing Owen has just said and then he claps his hands. “Okay, get to work!”

Everyone claims a spot around the tables. Carlos takes a paper slip from Owen and then looks around to find T.K., who is sitting across the room with his back to Carlos.

Carlos reluctantly walks over and sits in the empty seat next to him, all the while wondering if he can fake sick or claim a family emergency to get out of this. When he finally looks up at his partner he recoils in shock. T.K.’s lip is split and swollen, and there’s a dark ring of bruising underneath his right eye. “What happened to you?” Carlos asks, a surprised reflex releasing the words from his mouth before he can stop them.

The look T.K. sends him immediately reminds him that they’re not friends anymore. It’s full of vitriol and misery and…Carlos looks a little closer. Pain. There’s a rawness there that Carlos doesn’t remember seeing before.

“Sorry,” he says. “I just…that looks like it hurts.”

“Doesn’t feel great,” T.K. agrees, his voice stiff. “What are we supposed to be making?”

Carlos looks at the paper. “Police station.”

“Perfect. Way to read the room Dad. ACAB and all that,” T.K. grouses as he reaches for a pile of graham crackers and immediately begins squeezing icing all over.

“Um,” Carlos hems and T.K. stops.

“What?”

“Don’t you think maybe we should make a plan first?”

T.K. sighs and dramatically drops his piping bag onto the table. “Fine. Do whatever you want.”

“No I—I didn’t mean—” Carlos struggles to find the right words. “It’s fine. Let’s just try and get something standing first. That’s the hardest part anyway.”

They spend a couple minutes in silence gluing graham crackers together with icing and using some marshmallows to prop them up until they have something that roughly resembles walls and a roof. “You’re kind of good at this,” T.K. says. 

It’s the closest thing to niceties that they’ve shared in weeks.

“I have a lot of nieces and nephews. Not my first gingerbread house. Although it is my first police station,” Carlos admits.

“Cool,” T.K. says, then winces, his lip clearly hurting.

“You sure you don’t want to tell me what happened?” Carlos asks, feeling a little emboldened by T.K.’s compliment.

T.K. shoots him a glare. “You’re kind of annoying. You know that?”

“So I’ve been told,” Carlos says, trying to let the jab roll off his back. “But I know you’re new around here and you’ve obviously gotten into some trouble. Sometimes it helps to talk things out.”

He gets silence in return. God what the hell is wrong with this guy? He’s literally just trying to help. “Fine. You don’t have to tell me. But you should probably tell someone before whoever gave you that shiner comes back to give you a matching set.”

T.K. goes quiet, fiddling with the icing bag in his hand. When he speaks his voice is soft.“I went to a bar last night.”

“Ah. A little drunk and disorderly,” Carlos says, aware that he’s being snarky and not caring in the least. “So you have an idea of how the inside of this police station should look then.”

“I wasn’t drunk,” T.K. says quickly and Carlos remembers his Festive Friends answers. He looks down. “I just went through a really bad break up. Like nuclear bad. And then I relapsed.” He looks around and lowers his voice. “I relapsed with substances.”

Oh.

Carlos sets down the graham cracker in his hands, his full attention now on T.K. as memory slices through him. “I tried to pour us champagne during dinner. I’m such an idiot I’m sorry—“

“It’s fine, ” T.K. cuts him off quickly, like if he gets interrupted now he won’t ever be able to find the strength to share this again. He fiddles with the peppermint wrapper in his hands. “Ever since I’ve gotten here it’s just…it’s grey. And I just feel numb all the time. So I went out to a bar looking for trouble. And I found it. Big time. I guess I just…I wanted to feel something.”

He’s pulled in on himself, his body looking vulnerable and wounded. Carlos gets it now. The overenthusiastic sex. His no-strings attached mentality. The complete meltdown during dinner. This is a man who has been hurt, and he’s struggling to find a way to heal. Carlos had unknowingly probed at the wound in his soul and T.K. had lashed out. It makes sense, even if it wasn’t fair.

T.K. looks miserable and despite their history all Carlos wants to do is make him feel better. “Judging by that lip, I’d say mission accomplished,” he says, trying to lighten the moment.

“You’re really busting my balls right now?” T.K. asks, an unreadable expression on his face.

“No,” Carlos says. “I’m busting your jingle bells.” He tries and fails to hold back a smile at his incredibly stupid joke.

T.K. blinks at him. “That’s terrible,” he says, but he is also struggling to keep his face neutral.

“And yet you’re smiling,” Carlos says. He feels lighter, like there’s been an ominous blizzard hanging over him in the weeks since they stopped seeing each other. Now it feels like the snow has finally started to fall and all the ugliness of the bare world in winter is being covered in a fresh layer of soft white powder. There’s a sense of hope to it.

“I’m laughing at how stupid it is,” T.K. says.

“Well laugh while you work,” Carlos says, reaching for a bar of Hershey’s chocolate to put on the roof. “I know your dad said it wasn’t a competition, but Marjan and Paul seem to be working on a second story. So I’m not sure they know that.”

Together they finish the roof, adding on lots of dripping icing as snow and icicles. Carlos carefully starts to add windows while T.K. works on the landscaping. 

“Tommy I don’t know why you’re trying to make me do these little details when you know I’ve got fat fingers,” Judd is saying across the way as he and Tommy try to add a steeple to their church.

Marjan and Paul’s apartment building does indeed have two stories and they’ve somehow managed to chisel out actual windows in the graham crackers. Lexi and Nancy are creating a ski chalet that includes a chairlift, and Owen and Mateo’s fire station sports a fire pole made of pretzel rods.

“There,” T.K. says, plonking a creation down in front of where Carlos has crafted a front door out of Kit Kats.

Carlos raises an eyebrow. “What is that?”

“A snowman.”

Ah. Now Carlos sees it. There are two marshmallows stacked on top of each other and T.K. has shoved pretzel sticks in each side for arms. There is a lifesaver on each one and they’re connected by a thread of Twizzler. “What’s on its arms?” he asks.

“Handcuffs,” T.K. says.

“The snowman is getting arrested?”

“Or getting ready to do something kinky.”

“In front of a police station?”

“Some people get off on a little exhibitionism. Don’t judge Carlos,” T.K. says, a smirk on his face.

Damn it. They should have stayed mortal enemies. Now that they’re talking again, Carlos feels the urge to drag T.K. into the nearest cubicle and kiss the shit out of him. He didn’t need to go to a bar to find trouble. He could have shown up on Carlos’ doorstep and gotten into plenty.

Carlos’ attempt at a police cruiser has them both laughing; the oreo wheels keep falling off the rice krispie body (which T.K. snuck out and stole from the break room and has loudly been declared illegal by half the staff in the room) no matter how much icing he uses to try and stick them on.

“Stop eating our building materials,” Carlos admonishes a few minutes later when he goes for another red gum drop and finds they’re nearly gone.

“Why? They’re delicious. Tis the season for sugar,” T.K. says.

Carlos goes to give him a look and notices a dab of frosting on the corner of his mouth. “You’ve got some—“ He mimes brushing it away.

T.K. grabs a tissue and wipes, but misses completely. “No other side,” Carlos directs without success. “Here just, let me.”

He swipes the tissue from T.K.’s hand and dabs carefully, taking care not to pull on T.K.’s split lip. Their eyes meet and a heat passes between them, setting Carlos’ bones on fire. He clears his throat. “Got it.”

“Thanks,” T.K. says quietly.

They spend another half hour decorating before Owen makes them put all the buildings together into a little town while he snaps a picture for the company social media accounts. It’s actually pretty adorable once assembled and Carlos goes home that night strangely optimistic about what the rest of the week has in store.

Tuesday is business as usual and by the time Wednesday morning rolls around Carlos finds himself excitedly driving into work, his gift for T.K. in the passenger seat. He’s scrapped all his other gifts and spent the last two days looking for better items. Last night he visited a local tea shop and probably went a little overboard. They’d definitely upsold him on a few things and he’d let it happen because Monday’s gingerbread decorating had put a kernel of hope in his chest and…it can’t hurt to make sure T.K. likes his gifts, right?

He drops off T.K.’s gift bag and is only mildly disappointed when he walks into his own cubicle to find his desk is empty. It doesn’t matter; at least, that’s what he tells himself. Honestly, he’s not surprised. People are terrible at doing Secret Santa, it’s very likely that his person has forgotten him in the hustle and bustle of the holiday season.

He heads to his desk and gets right to work because they’re all heading out early to help with a toy drive at the local fire station; another of Owen’s brilliant ideas to encourage office camaraderie. It means he has a lot more to take care of than usual to try and make up for the lost time, and by mid-morning he’s in desperate need of a second coffee.

He’s about to get up and make one when his phone rings. It’s Ernie, their security guard from downstairs informing him that there’s a delivery waiting for him. Confused but intrigued Carlos heads for the elevator.

“Hey Ernie, all set for the holidays?” he asks when he reaches the desk on the ground floor.

“Just about. Got a couple more things to pick up today, but then I should be good to go,” Ernie tells him. He nods toward a bag and a coffee cup on the desk. ��That’s for you.”

“Thanks.”

Carlos picks up the white paper sack and has to hold back a snort when he sees what’s written on the side. Hope the holidays don’t make you “cronuts”- FF. He peeks inside and inhales the scent of cronuts from Twiggy’s. Cronuts are a massive weakness of his, and a sip of the coffee tells him it’s made just to his specifications, a little bit of cream, no sugar. Whoever his Festive Friend is, they know him well. His suspicions are definitely leaning more and more toward Lexi.

He gets back in the elevator and when he steps off he nearly runs over T.K. “Whoa, sorry,” he says, holding up the coffee so it doesn’t spill all over T.K.’s chest.

“Lunch?” T.K. asks, nodding toward the bag.

“A snack from my ‘Festive Friend,’” he says. “Cronuts from the Twiggy’s.”

“That place is great. Enjoy,” T.K. says. 

“Do you want one?” The words are out of his mouth before he can stop himself. God he’s needy. “I um, I got two and I can’t eat both. They’re really only good fresh, it’s not like I can save one—“

“Sure.” T.K. thankfully interrupts his ramble and the affirmative response sends a jolt of electricity through him.

They step into the break room and T.K. boils some hot water for tea before settling down across from Carlos at one of the high top tables, a kitschy little vase of fake flowers between them. 

Carlos pulls out the cronuts and puts each one on a paper plate. They’re decorated for the season as little Santa bellies, and hopefully they’re as delicious as he remembers. He slides one toward T.K. before picking up his own and taking a massive bite. He has to hold back a groan. They’re freaking amazing.

When he looks up he finds T.K. staring at him with an amused smirk on his face. “Sorry,” Carlos says, feeling his cheeks heat. “I um, these are my favorite.”

“So I can see,” T.K. says, the smirk widening a little. “The last time I saw that look we were both way more naked.”

Carlos feels his entire face go red at the reminder. He finishes chewing his bite, trying not to let memories of said naked time take over his brain. “So your dad,” he says. “He’s really into the holidays huh? We’ve never had so many festive office events.”

“Yeah my dad doesn’t really do anything by half measures,” T.K. says. “I think he might be overcompensating on the holiday cheer a little bit this year. The move down here was kind of a lot and I haven’t exactly been a bundle of joy lately, so he’s trying to fix it with cocoa and faux Christmas wreaths.”

Carlos takes another bite and thinks carefully about his next move. This new dynamic between them still feels tenuous, and he doesn’t want to fracture it. But at the same time, he can see the unfiltered hurt in T.K.’s eyes and he longs to help bear the weight of it. “You mentioned a breakup the other day,” he says quietly. “Is that part of why you came?”

T.K. blows out a breath and looks down at his cronut. “It’s the whole reason we came.”

Carlos watches as he wrestles internally and he’s just about to say that T.K. doesn’t have to tell him anything, when T.K. starts to speak again. “I had a boyfriend, in New York. Alex. We were together for like…I don’t know, a year I guess? He was the first boyfriend I’d had since getting sober and I wanted it to work so badly. Like this relationship was proof I finally had my shit together, you know?”

Carlos nods.

“I had this plan, I was going to propose to him. Had a ring, a restaurant, the whole thing. I was basically down on one knee and he—he told me he’d been cheating on me. With his spin instructor.”

Something hot and violent shoots through Carlos. “That motherfucker,” he says, before he can stop himself.

T.K. looks up in surprise and lets out a startled laugh.

“Sorry,” Carlos says. “That’s just…wow what an asshole.”

“Yeah he definitely was,” T.K. says, looking a little more relaxed now, as if Carlos’ angered sympathy has put him more at ease. “For a long time I think. I can look back on it now and see little moments. We only ever went where he wanted to go for dinner. He was always busy when I asked him to meet my friends. There was stuff I was overlooking because I was trying to prove to everyone else that I was stable.”

“I get that,” Carlos says.

T.K. shifts a little. “I went home after that, found a bottle of pills and…took them until I couldn’t feel anymore. My dad had to bust down the door to save my life.” He shrugs. “And that’s how we ended up here. He knew I needed to get away, so he took me as far as he could get.”

He looks up at Carlos. “I’m doing better now. Well, kind of.” He indicates his black eye. “But that’s why I freaked out on you that night. It wasn’t the champagne or anything you did. You were—you were so kind to me Carlos. I just wasn’t ready for it. And I’m really sorry that I walked out on you.”

The urge to reach over and touch him, to hold his hands and soothe away the hurt that’s painted into the lines of his forehead is overwhelming. But he’s not sure T.K. would be into that so he grips his own thighs instead. “Thank you for telling me,” he says. “That all sounds really difficult. I’m sorry I ambushed you. And I’m sorry I wasn’t more understanding when I realized you were uncomfortable. I think um, I think my ego took a little bit of a hit,” he says sheepishly.

“Oh you think Mr. ‘I Know It Doesn’t Look Like a Lot of Work’?” T.K. asks with a grin.

“Hey, that fish took me like three hours to make,” Carlos teases. “You missed out.”

T.K. sobers a little and fiddles with his cronut again. “I think I missed out on a lot.”

Carlos opens his mouth to offer a response, but Lexi pokes her head into the break room. “Carlos, your phone is ringing off the hook.”

“Coming,” he says, sliding off the stool and picking up his plate with the last couple bites of cronut on it. “Are you going to the toy drive this afternoon?”

“Boss dad said be there so yeah, I’m going,” T.K. says. “Thanks for the cronut.”

“You’re welcome,” Carlos says and then hustles back to his cubicle, where his phone is indeed ringing off the hook. He shoves the last bite of cronut into his mouth as he sits down, chewing furiously before he picks up. “This is Carlos.”

An HR crisis means Carlos is the last one to leave the office and arrive at the fire station’s toy drive. He looks for T.K. as soon as he gets there, but Lexi pulls him over to a table where they’re taking donations for one of the local food pantries. 

“So,” Lexi says as they fill boxes with canned beans and stuffing mix and mac and cheese, “looks like someone’s back on Carlos Reyes’ nice list. Although with the way you were looking at him, seems more like you’d prefer he stay on the naughty list.”

“Lexi!” Carlos hisses, looking around. “There are kids here!”

“Oh they can’t hear me,” she scoffs, handing him a bag of flour. “They’re all at the make-an-ornament station.”

Carlos looks over and finds T.K. hunkered down by that very table, laughing and smiling as he helps a couple kids glue pompoms and sequins to colored paper. It’s adorable and Carlos’ heart melts a little at the sight.

“See? That look right there. You’ve got it bad. You want him to jingle your ba—“

“I’m going to remind you that I’m your HR rep and you probably shouldn’t finish that sentence,” he says quickly.

“Fine.” She rolls her eyes. “But you two did look pretty cozy in the break room earlier. The great branzino war is over I take it?”

“Yeah we had a good talk,” Carlos says.

She clears her throat. “You can say thank you anytime now you know.”

He furrows his brow. “For what?”

“For making you do Festive Friends and fixing your broken heart.”

“My heart was not broken,” he scoffs.

“You have been acting like you’re in the last ten minutes of a Hallmark movie for weeks. Time to finally realize you’re in love and kiss under the mistletoe,” Lexi tells him.

“Just because we’re friendly now doesn’t mean we’re going to kiss.”

“Okay. Sure. Believe whatever you want.”

There’s a massive influx then from a church group and thankfully the matter is dropped for the rest of the night.

On Friday Carlos stops at home to change his clothes before heading to a local bar for their holiday party and the big Festive Friends reveal. He puts on a pair of dark jeans and winces when he pulls on the ugly sweater that Owen insisted they all wear. As far as they go, his is pretty tame, albeit with a bit more sparkle and pizazz than he usually goes for. It says Feliz Navidad in tinseled letters with some primary colored pom poms decorating the rest for good measure. It had been part of a family white elephant a few years ago and has sat in the back of his closet since for good reason. 

He gabs the box he wrapped up for T.K. on the way out the door. It’s nearly as brightly colored as his sweater. Generally he tries for a more sedate theme in wrapped gifts, but T.K. is so vivacious and colorful that he broke into the stash of wrapping paper he usually saves for his nieces and nephews.

He’s nervous as he drives and he can’t quite put his finger on why. Is it because he wants T.K. to like his gift? Because things between him and T.K. have shifted in a more positive direction and his stupid heart can’t quite stop believing that tonight might be like that first night at the honky tonk? Is it because he feels very stupid in this sweater and he really hopes everyone else obeyed Owen’s instructions from the email invite?

Probably all of it.

Ah well. At least if things don’t go well there will be liquor around to help drown his sorrows.

There’s immediate relief when he walks in through the doors of the bar and sees holiday themed knit-ware all over. “Hey Carlos, glad you came,” Owen says, greeting him at the door in a sweater with a massive reindeer head on the front.

“Mr. Strand,” Carlos says, giving him a nod.

“Carlos we’ve been over this. You can call me Owen,” Owen says, a tinge of good natured exasperation in his tone. 

“Yes, right, sorry” Carlos says, embarrassed. Didn’t he just chide Mateo for the same thing last week? Somehow this seems different. And definitely a weird way to address the man who fathered his most recent hookup.

“Go ahead and grab a drink, there’s hors d’oeuvres, I highly recommended the stuffed mushrooms, and then when the time feels right make sure you deliver your gift to your Festive Friend,” Owen says brightly. Then he leans close. “I got Judd a new belt. Italian leather, handcrafted, this thing is a masterpiece. He is gonna love it!”

“I’m sure he will,” Carlos agrees.

“Oh! Nancy! Come on in!” Owen gives Carlos a pat on the shoulder and moves past him to greet her.

Carlos says hello to Judd and his wife Grace, his eyes searching the room and finally landing on T.K. who is standing at the bar chatting with Mateo. Carlos’ heart flutters at the sight of him even as he tries to figure out what the heck is knitted on the back of his sweater. It appears to be a long, yellow tail, but that can’t possibly be right, can it? He takes a breath and then abruptly loses courage and goes to find Lexi instead. “Nice earrings,” he says when he gets to her table.

“Thanks,” she says, pushing her hair back so he can see them better. “They’re from my ‘Festive Friend’ Marjan.”

“Great,” Carlos says as he grabs a chip from a bowl on the table. “Did you give Paul your gift?”

“Yes, he is thrilled with the crime novels I got him. He hasn’t read that author yet so hopefully he likes them.” She gives him a look. “Why do you still have T.K.’s?”

“I haven’t seen him yet,” Carlos says defensively.

“You mean you saw him and you’re too chicken to go over there because you’re having feelings and don’t know what to do with them,” she says bluntly. “Are you going to ask him out when you give it to him?”

“I—I don’t know,” Carlos says. “That seems pushy.”

“You two were practically making out in that break room.”

“We were literally sitting three feet apart,” Carlos says dryly. 

“Fine. You were emotionally making out.”

He wrinkles his nose. “That’s not a thing.”

“I think you should ask him. It’s Christmas. The season of miracles. And wishes. And Santa shit. This is your chance!” she says enthusiastically.

“How much have you had to drink?” he asks.

She scoffs. “This isn’t drunkeness. It’s my Christmas wish that you grow a pair and ask T.K. out.”

“That is a terrible wish,” Carlos says. 

“Well it is what it is. You wouldn’t want to break a girl’s heart at Christmas would you?”

He opens his mouth to respond but Paul calls Lexi’s name and beckons her toward him. “That’s my cue,” she says, hopping off her bar stool. “Gonna go kick Paul’s ass at darts. Good luck!”

And with that she’s gone, leaving Carlos alone with his feelings and his gift box. He stares at it for a moment and gives himself a stern pep talk. It’s a gift. Not a marriage proposal. If T.K. hates it, it’s whatever. 

“Hey Carlos.”

He’s waited too long. He looks up to find T.K. standing on the other side of the table, a smile on his face. Carlos can now see the front of his sweater. Some kind of lizard smiles at him, clearly the front end of the tail he spotted before. Above it are the words “Merry Crickets.” It is truly the most hideous thing he’s ever laid eyes on, but somehow T.K. makes it look adorable.

“Hey,” he replies..

Excellent. Great. He’s crushing this.

“Nice sweater,” T.K. says, taking a sip of the drink in his hand. 

“Thanks. This is some party. Your dad is quite the host.”

T.K. rolls his eyes, but there’s a fondness to it. “Just be grateful I talked him out of chartering a party bus. And roller skating.”

“Your dad thought our holiday party should be at a roller rink?”

“He was going with an 80’s holiday theme at first,” T.K. says. “It took a lot of bargaining to get him down to ugly sweater instead. I think he was an event planner in a former life.”

“He definitely has a flair for it,” Carlos agrees. He looks down at the present in front of him. He should have gotten a drink before doing this. “So um, actually, I’m your Festive Friend. Surprise. This is for you.”

He slides it across the table and T.K.’s eyes immediately light up. “Can I open it now?” he asks eagerly.

He looks like a kid on Christmas morning and it’s so endearing that Carlos can barely breathe. “Yeah, yes, it’s all yours.”

T.K. pulls off the bow and rips open the paper, lifting out the soft yellow sweatshirt inside. He doesn’t say anything for a moment and Carlos feels a flutter of nerves. “It’s—“

“The sweatshirt Harry Styles wore in New York last summer,” T.K. says. His tone is almost reverent, his thumbs moving back and forth to stroke the material. “Oh my god. I have Harry Styles’ sweatshirt.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s not the exact one he wore,” Carlos says, feeling sheepish. “But I know you like him and hoodies so it seemed right.”

“It must have taken forever for you to find this,” T.K. says.

“Oh, no, it was…it was no big deal,” Carlos says, omitting the entire night he spent on instagram combing through Harry’s outfits of the last few years and trying to find them for sale. 

“Thank you Carlos,” T.K. says, sincere gratitude in his voice. “This is amazing. All your gifts were amazing.”

“I mean, that hat was kind of lame,” Carlos says, still embarrassed that he bought something so generic.

“No it’s great! I’m going to wear it the next time I go to an Astros game,” T.K. says, a twinkle of mischief in his eye.

Carlos chuckles. “Yeah good luck with that.”

“Did you get your last gift yet?” T.K. asks casually.

Carlos shakes his head. “Not yet.”

“Any guesses who it might be?”

He has no idea. There’s no one in the office that knows him well enough to send him cronuts besides Lexi and he knows she had Paul. “No,” he says. “Usually I’m pretty good at figuring this kind of thing out, but everyone in the office is so new I haven’t really been able to get a read on anyone.”

“Marjan?”

“She had Lexi.”

“Paul?” 

Carlos looks around until he finds him standing in a corner next to a Christmas tree, laughing at something Lexi just said. “I don’t think so. He’s from Chicago, I doubt he would know about Twiggy’s.”

“Judd?”

“Something tells me he wouldn’t know about cronuts either,” Carlos says with a laugh. “I feel like it has to be someone who knows me pretty well, but Lexi is the only one—“

His eyes land on T.K.’s face and he knows. He can see it in his eyes and he feels stupid he didn’t realize it before when T.K. used that false casual tone. “You?” he asks in surprise. “You’re my Festive Friend?”

T.K. reaches into his back pocket and pulls out an envelope. “Merry Christmas,” he says as he hands it to Carlos. 

Still in a little bit of shock Carlos carefully lifts the flap on the envelope to reveal a printed out email inside. “A cooking class?” he asks, looking up to search T.K.’s eyes. 

T.K. nods, a flicker of nerves flashing over his face. “It’s bruschetta, pasta, and a dessert. A husband and wife team run it out of their home. I thought, I mean you obviously know how to cook, but I thought it might be fun.”

“It sounds amazing,” Carlos says genuinely. He’s always wanted to try his hand at homemade pasta.

T.K. nods and takes a breath. “I um, I got you two tickets. You can take whoever you want, but I—“ He runs his hands nervously over his jeans. “I know I fucked things up between us, so I was hoping that maybe this could be kind of a do-over for us. If you want?”

“Yes,” Carlos says immediately. It’s embarrassingly fast and absolutely gives away how badly he wants them to try again, but he doesn’t care. “Yes I would love a do-over.”

“Yeah?” T.K. asks, his eyes full of hope.

“Yeah,” Carlos says. A smile plays on his lips and he’s about to thank T.K. for his other gifts when something occurs to him. “You little shit!” he says incredulously. “You bought me those cronuts and then sat there and ate one like you had no clue who’d given them to me!”

T.K. sends him a wicked smile. “I was counting on your holiday generosity,” he says.

“How did you even know about that bakery?” Carlos asks.

“You mentioned it,” T.K. says. “I don’t know, it was the second or third time we hooked up. I saw a flyer for them on your fridge and you told me how good they were.”

“You remember that?” Carlos asks in surprise. After their blowup he’d convinced himself that he was just a warm body for T.K. to be with, another notch in his bedpost who’d meant nothing to him.

T.K. looks at him, his face serious. “I remember all of it Carlos.”

The words make his heart swell and he hysterically wonders if this is how the Grinch felt when he heard the Who’s singing on Christmas. “I remember too,” he says. “It was incredible.”

“That first night, in the honky tonk. Best bathroom hookup of my life,” T.K. tells him.

“Only bathroom hookup of my life,” Carlos says.

“Yeah, I know,” T.K. says with a roll of his eyes.

“How could you know that?”

“Because you kept looking around like it was the most unsanitary thing you’d ever seen in your life,” T.K. tells him. “So I made it my mission to make you forget all about it. Pretty sure I succeeded.”

Carlos flushes as he  thinks about T.K.’s mouth and his hands and the way they felt on his body. “You definitely did.” His gaze drops to T.K.’s lips. “God, I want to kiss you so badly right now.”

T.K. smirks, clearly please that he’s turned Carlos on in the middle of this bar. “What’s stopping you?”

“Um the fact that all of our co-workers are here. And also your dad,” Carlos says with a laugh.

As if on cue Owen’s voice rings out over the crowd. “All right everyone!” He claps his hands a couple times. “If I could have everyone’s attention please! Thank you all for coming to the 126 Designs holiday party. I have a little surprise up my sleeve. Tonight, we are going to be participating in some holiday karaoke!”

A bar employee rolls a karaoke machine in out of nowhere to cheers from the crowd. “Did you know?” Carlos asks.

“No,” T.K. says. “But I can’t say I’m surprised.”

“Get on over here!” Owen encourages them. “Judd! Let’s hear a little Deck the Halls buddy!”

“Come on.”

T.K. reaches for Carlos’ hand and pulls him toward a side door. “Wait, what about karaoke?” Carlos asks.

“Do you really want to stay here and listen to my dad attempt a version of Santa Claus is Coming to Town?”

Carlos considers this. “Actually…”

T.K. laughs and tugs him again. “Come on Reyes.”

They step outside into the night, the door closing behind them. It’s quiet and the air has a slight chill. Nothing that would even hint at a white Christmas, but enough that it feels like the holiday season instead of the dead of summer. A few stars have managed to permeate the light pollution and the moon shines brightly above them.

The side of the restaurant is lit by a single streetlamp, giving them just enough light to see each other, but also the illusion of privacy from anyone else who might be walking by. T.K. leans against the brick of the wall and tugs Carlos toward him, dropping his hand so he can grab his waist, his thumb pressing into the crease between Carlos’ thigh and his hip through his pants. “Well,” T.K. says, the cocky ass smirk on his face that shoots something hot through Carlos’ veins. “Go ahead. Kiss away.”

Carlos looks around in fake concern. “Mmm, I don’t know. Someone could still see us out here.”

“Don’t worry,” T.K. pulls a sprig of mistletoe from his pocket and dangles it over their heads. “I swiped this from inside. Now you have to kiss me. Christmas rules.”

“Oh is that right?” Carlos asks with smile, pressing in a little closer, and lifting a hand to run it through T.K.’s hair before sliding it down to cradle the back of his neck.

“Definitely,” T.K. says.

Carlos doesn’t waste another second before leaning in and fitting their lips together. The sparks inside him whirl and dance before bursting into full on flames. It feels like coming home. 

T.K. opens up and invites him in, their bodies coming flush together, searching for as much contact as possible. Carlos fists one hand into T.K.’s hair, the other landing solidly on his lower back and urging him closer, while T.K.’s roam everywhere, traveling Carlos’ biceps, his chest, his back, his ass, and everything in between. 

Carlos slots a thigh between T.K.’s legs, pressing into him and T.K.’s head falls back against the wall, eyes closing as he lets out something between a groan and a sigh. Carlos smiles and uses the change in position to press kisses into the sensitive spot just below his ear. “I missed you,” he says in between breaths.

“I missed you too. Am I going to have to report this to HR?” T.K. asks.

Carlos pauses and pulls back, sending T.K. a withering look. “Haha,” he says dryly. “Thanks for reminding me that I’m going to have my hands full with this one in the new year.”

“My ass is quite a handful,” T.K. says with a smirk. “But you can handle it. It’s just a little bit of paperwork. And someone got you really nice pens for the holidays.”

“Yeah someone did,” Carlos says, poking him in the side until he squirms. “Speaking of paperwork, you owe me a thank you note for your gifts.”

T.K. bites his lip. “Why don’t you take me back to your place and I’ll do a little better than a thank you note?”

Fuck. Carlos swallows hard. “What about the party? Won’t your dad be upset?”

“I’m spending Christmas day with him. He’ll live.” He slides a finger along the waistband of Carlos’ jeans. “We can go back in if you really want to though. I do a mean rendition of Jingle Bell Rock. We can stand in there with all of our co-workers and you can try not to think about how good I’d make you feel if the two of us were in bed together.”

Carlos strokes a thumb across T.K.’s cheek. “As much as I would like to hear you sing Jingle Bell Rock, I think I’d rather take you home.”

T.K. gestures toward the street. “Then lead on Festive Friend.”

It’s the merriest Christmas Carlos has had in a long time. 

[inthemaelstrom]

The Problem of Intent

I think it might be time to publish this again, from my old Dowsing blog.

The Problem of Intent

I woke up this morning thinking about the word “intent,” as I have been off and on for some time. My ruminations finally solidified yesterday after watching an episode of Red Table Talk on Facebook (another reason I haven’t been back here in a while—Facebook, not Red Table Talk). It’s a good episode with Chelsea Handler talking with Jada Pinkett Smith and Adrienne Banfield-Jones about white privilege and parts of it are really painful to watch, mostly the bits from Handler’s documentary, in which she interviews white women, mostly poor and conservative, about whether they think white privilege exists (they don’t). Handler’s own previous dumbassery on the subject is also pretty painful, but she’s getting it right now, and that’s what matters most.

But there’s a point in the video where she tells a story on herself, illustrating her former dumbassery and the person who calls her out said, “It’s not about the intention, it’s about the reception.” A little further on, Handler acknowledges that white people don’t want to learn because it’s uncomfortable to learn not to be an asshole or a bigot to other people, “you gotta go head first into deep things and get in trouble and say stupid things to learn how to say smarter things.” All of which is true. Not just say smarter things, but know smarter things, I would add. The process of learning to be a good ally to people who don’t have your privilege is hard and embarrassing and upsetting. It’s heartbreaking and guilt-making to realize you’ve been walking through the world hurting people (if you’re not a Rethuglican who enjoys that kind of thing; but I digress).

And then Jada Pinkett Smith says that key thing that I’ve been thinking about for ages now: “I think we gotta make some room for people to say stupid stuff sometimes,” because racism has been going on for so long that most of it is unconscious now. People don’t realize they’re being racist unless it’s pointed out to them (and that’s where other white people need to get off their asses; it’s not Black people’s job to do that). She continues, “Not every—you know, not every action is racist.” So while it may feel racist to the object of the action, it may not to the actor and it may not have that intent behind it.

This is why intent matters—also. Not by itself, but in addition to reception. Because if we are doing our damnedest to be a good friend and generous person, to do the right thing, to not be racist, sexist, bigoted, insensitive, ableist, oblivious to the experiences of others, and we fuck up along the way as we inevitably will, a little compassion helps fuel the struggle for everyone. There’s a mental health element to this too, and Handler prefaces her part of the discussion with what seems at first like her irrelevant experiences in therapy to make this point. She spends a long time talking about her own struggles with pain and anger and how realizing that her anger was the result of the pain she was in was the thing that broke her open, finally, and got some real work done. When we’re operating primarily on a foundation of pain (and here I walked away to go make my bed, because, yanno, pain), then the world becomes our enemy. Everyone becomes our enemy. Everyone is out to hurt us, to insult us, to fuck with us, plotting against us to make us miserable, being mean to us. Everything everyone says or does to us that hurts us (and when we’re already in pain, this doesn’t generally take a lot) is intentional. Because people are bad and mean and hurtful and fuck all ya’ll anyway. I hate people.

And that’s clearly bullshit. It feels right when we’re hurting, and damn if there aren’t days when I get up in the morning and look at the news and thinkWhat the ever loving fuck is wrong with you people?about nearly everyone in the world after seeing all the hurt we do each other. But to think the whole world is your enemy, that every person you meet, every friend you make, will ultimately betray and hurt you creates a huge number of problems and solves nothing. First, believing we are somehow important enough for all the individuals in our lives (never mind the rest of the world) to spend their time machinating about how to hurt us is one of the best examples of narcissism I can think of, and utterly delusional. That’s like gaslighting yourself. It’s also an example of flawed perceptions and expectations. It’s our expectations of others, ultimately, that wound us: expecting perfection, expecting an intimate and automatic understanding of our POV, expecting unearned unconditional love, expecting all the attention. Love people as you find them, and if they, in their own pain and rage, hurt you, love them from a distance.

Worse than this, though, is that anticipating injury from other people assures that this is all we’ll ever get from them. Ever. Because everything they do will be an injury to us if we fail to see their intent and their focus. One of the last times my mom came to visit me here in New York, we were walking along the street and she said, in what was clearly a revelatory moment for her, “wow, people are really so focused on themselves that they don’t really pay attention to anyone else.” This was coming from a woman who agonized over what other people might think of her if she went out without looking perfectly dressed, perfectly coiffed, perfectly dignified, who was painfully self-conscious about how her disability made her look. I wish she had had more time to enjoy the liberation of that revelation. Because she was right about that. People are all dealing with their own pain, their own stuff, their own troubles, and hurting or judging you is not a high priority on their to-do list.

Unless they are so wrapped up in their own pain that they are going to lash out first, and there are some people who are that hurt, that broken. It’s good to remember that it’s still really not about you in those circumstance; if they are hurting and judging you, what they see in you that they hate is almost always what they hate or feel insecure about themselves. Those folks have a lot of work to do that you can’t do for them; all you can do is wish them well and get out of range. Because in their pain, they create more of it. This is what intentional, unexamined and institutional racism and sexism does to people. It creates a cycle of pain that needs work to be broken.

Again, this is why intent matters. If I’m hurting you out of maliciousness that’s one thing; I need a slap upside the head and a boot in the rear. If I’m hurting you out of my own pain, that’s more understandable but still not excusable; I’ve got some work to do on myself, then, and owe you an apology and an effort to do better. But if I’m hurting you by accident, because I’m learning to do better and still making mistakes, cut me a break please. Work with me. Call me out, by all means. I can’t learn if I don’t know I’ve screwed up. If it’s really egregious, don’t spare your anger. I can’t rightly ask you to do that and I probably deserve it. But don’t use my mistake to make judgments about what kind of person I am at the core, because then you’re doing the same thing that bigots do. If you think I’m the kind of person who would intentionally hurt others, then we already have a problem of perception and reception on your end. And that’s bad intent.

[farfromstrange]

Butterfly Effect | Michael Kinsella x Reader

Masterlist

Chapter Three: Irish Coffee

Pairing: Michael Kinsella x Barista!Reader

Summary: Your day has not been going well. When Michael comes in after closing time, in need for some coffee and a comforting presence, you help each other out. Or, you take yet another step toward Michael, hoping he will open up to you when you open up to him – and then you find yourself making an unexpected move.

Warnings: Angst, rude customers, mentions of injury, self-consciousness, Reader is sad, Michael is sad, alcohol consumption, hurt/comfort, fluff, suggestive language, kissing (18+ MINORS DNI)

Word Count: 5.6k

A/n: I’m starting to get obsessed with my own series, which is why I keep posting chapters in a span of 24 hours. The past two days it’s been 12:23 am and now it’s 1:47, but I can’t myself. This went well, I think. Reader does not give up, but Michael needs someone who refuses to give up, so… and he gives back what he gets.

Find Part 1 & Part 2 here…

There is something about today that doesn’t sit right with you.

It all started when you slept through your alarm. By the time you woke up, you knew you wouldn’t make it to work on time, which had never happened before. Then, you remembered that your car ran out of gas and the gas station near you was closed today due to a robbery that had taken place a few days ago, and you didn’t have the time to drive to the gas station out of town and neither did you have enough gas left for that. So you had to walk for thirty minutes. You arrived at the café sweaty and forty-five minutes late, and the worst part was that your boss had appeared out of nowhere and when you came in late, she yelled at you until you were basically on your knees and close to tears. 

You thought that would be as worse as it gets, but you were wrong. A customer mixed up his order with an elderly woman and they ended up fighting, which inevitably led to you being blamed for something that wasn’t even in your hands at the time, and the man made sure to push his words as deep as he could like a hot cigarette on your already itchy skin. And the people that came in after that only seemed to get worse. A group of tourists found their way inside and since you are chronically under-staffed, you and Sarah could barely keep up with the load. You ended up with a dirty coffee maker, no more mugs to spare, and questioning your sanity. 

The worst part of the day is what ultimately led you where you are now; you’ve locked yourself in the bathroom for your break after you tried to clean one of the tables and a customer accidentally bumped into you with their unfinished latte and the entire drink poured over your apron and has soaked the clothes you’re wearing underneath. You haven’t brought a spare shirt and the hair dryer you keep in the back isn’t working anymore. You’re stuck with a shirt that now smells like hazelnuts and warm milk, and you’re pretty sure your skin is red from the heat.

But it was an accident, you tell yourself, and even though the customer blamed you, you feel like they had every right to and you apologized to them, offered a coffee on the house, and wished them a nice day. You did the right thing. You should feel good about yourself for how you’ve handled yourself so far, but honestly, there is nothing good about the way you’re feeling now. 

Tears well up in your eyes. The insides of your palms are covered in crescent moon indentations from your nails. Your back hurts, your stomach hurts, everything hurts, and you feel disgusting. You smell disgusting. No perfume in the world can fix the smell of your clothes and no towel can dry the coffee that has dampened your perfectly good blouse. You always keep a spare apron around, every employee has several in their locker, but that won’t do much because the fabric will continue sticking even long after it’s dry and you hate the way it feels so cold against your skin. 

You sniffle. The first tear threatens to fall. You look up, your lashes fluttering as you try hard not to cry because of something so stupid, but everything you do feels wrong and you hate that. You always try to be the best, to make people feel good, and to serve them to the highest standard – you have been lacking today. You don’t want to be here and neither should you, not in your state, but there has got to be something you can do to fix this bad strain of karma. 

You don’t want to cry. They’ll see that you’ve cried and that would only lead to unnecessary questions. Sarah will be worried. You don’t want to talk, you just want to go home. But you really can’t leave them hanging, not when the end is so near and you’re set to close the place on your own. You have to do better. 

Even though none of this is anywhere near your fault, you put the weight on your shoulder anyway because you don’t know what else to do. It’s heavy and you can barely carry it, and you find yourself swallowing a broken sob as your fingers dig into the porcelain of the sink. 

“No,” you growl to yourself. You ruffle your messy hair, brush the tears from your cheeks and try to shake it all off. 

You have to get through the next couple of hours without breaking down. 

 So you change your apron, put on a fake smile, and make your way back out. The busyness has died down a little. You try to act as if nothing happened, tending to the other customers while Sarah starts cleaning up behind you. You try to focus on the smile of the woman you’re serving, but it somehow makes you want to cry again. 

The stress of the day made you forget about Michael for a moment and the fact he hasn’t shown up yet, and you’re about to close. But you’re not sure if seeing him now would be such a good idea, considering you’re not in the mood to make someone feel better. Every time you smile, it feels fake, and it’s probably as obvious as it feels. 

Sarah waves goodbye when her shift is over since she came in before you and your boss banned you to closing for coming in late. The clock strikes seven. The door falls shut behind your colleague. Still no Michael. 

With a heavy sigh, you start putting away the lunch offer sign. You clean the counter and the machines. One of the mugs slips out of your hands and falls into the sink, breaking upon impact. 

That’s the last straw. Your fist hits the kitchenette and you get on your knees, hiding yourself from an empty café, and then, with your forehead pressed against the back of your hands as you’re leaning forward against the sink, the tears start to fall. You silence your sobs, but the tears do a pretty good job of shaking you up as it is. 

Today has been a little too much. 

When the bell above the door rings, you realize you haven’t locked the front door yet and the sign is still turned on “open”, which is a stupid amateur mistake and you’re such an idiot. 

You quickly wipe your tears. “We’re closed,” you try to sound normal, but your nose is stuffed. 

“Is it seven already?”

You stutter, whipping your head around to look at him. “Michael,” you say. 

“Hey,” he says, and this time it doesn’t take him long to give you a small smile. He looks almost apologetic, but then his eyes fall on your wet cheeks and his face falls a little. “Bad time?”

“We’re closed.” When have you become so harsh?

“Sorry.”

You shake your head. “No, I’m sorry, I– I just forgot to turn the sign. My bad. You couldn’t have known, so technically, I can still serve you. You just have to give me a minute to reheat the coffee maker.”

“Ya don’t have to do that, and ya shouldn’t,” Michael says. 

You frown at him. 

“Yer closed, so I won’t order a coffee.”

“It’s fine, really.”

“No,” he’s insistent, and he steps a bit forward. “Ya alright?”

It’s obvious that you’re not, but you are the last person to admit when you’re not feeling well. And it’s just been a bad day, you don’t even know why it’s been dragging you down ever since you got up this morning. The day is over now and you can move on. 

Though this is the part where the optimist in you isn’t quite strong enough yet. 

You meet his eyes with your reddened ones. “Are you?” you retort. 

He’s surprised at your bold question. You expect him to push you away, to turn around and leave, or to lie to you, but he’s rather quick to lower his head guiltily and he says, “Ya want the short or the long answer?”

You shrug. “Both.”

“Yer busy–”

“I need a drink,” you cut him off. 

“Oh,” he hums. 

“Do you still want a coffee?”

“What’s that have to do with it?”

“Just answer the question.”

Michael nods. “Yeah.”

You reach into the drawer next to you and pull out the keys for the front door. You toss them to him. “Lock the door,” you say. “I’ll make us some coffee.”

Not just him, both of you. He eases when he realizes you’re doing something for yourself too, and he follows your command to lock the door. 

Last night, Michael cried himself to sleep. He stared at your note on the napkin until the Sharpie was completely wet with his tears, and then he held it in his hands as he retreated to his bedroom floor. The bed is too soft most nights, he can’t sleep on it. The beds in prison were a lot more uncomfortable and he’s not used to the softer kind anymore. He needs something hard to lie on, and the floor often enough suffices. 

The hard floorboards dig into his skin when he sleeps, and he’s no longer trapped by blankets when he wakes up from a nightmare. Sometimes, he even sleeps on the bathroom floor. It’s cold and it’s sturdy; it reminds him of a time when that was the norm, and it somehow still is, deep inside of him, and he can’t get rid of the feeling.

He woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of his labored breathing. Detached from his physical form, he stared at the wall with tears in his eyes. He thought about the bullet holes, he heard the shots clearly in his ears, and he turned deaf for a second. He couldn’t move. 

He found himself next to the indentations in the stone, running his fingers over the holes. He imagined the blood splatter, the screaming, the pain, and the tears. It tore him to shreds, and he watched her die again. He lost his wife all over again and then he lost his daughter. It’s always the same, but this time, she died in his dreams, and it had never felt more real. 

Washing cars for Amanda in the morning led to moments when he disappeared completely. The water was on for far too long; he probably multiplied the bills with how much he wasted, but once his mind is stuck, moving seems impossible. He challenged his anger into whatever equipment he had at hand, scrubbing the cars cleaner than they were ever before, but it didn’t help. 

At lunch, he sat in the same restaurant down the street from Anna’s school again. He watched her walk with her friends, he watched her smile and laugh, and he felt relieved to see her alive. At least that part of his dream wasn’t true, but she was still too far away the same way she is now, and he can’t touch her. He isn’t allowed to hold her in his arms, to make sure she’s safe and protected. And that truly feels like he is losing her forever all over again. 

He was washing cars until the last evening when Amanda physically had to pull him out and force him to go home, but Michael never made it home. Instead, he found the napkin in the pocket of his jacket. He tossed away the cup, but he has kept the napkin. The note is so much longer and he can hear you say the same words to him over and over again, and he wants to smile, he really does; he wants to find a reason to smile and he wants to believe he is a good man. So after Amanda told him to go home, Michael once again found his way to the same place that has offered him relief two times before, and he can’t be trusted with his thoughts on his own – this is the only way. You are the only escape, and he hates himself for being weak enough to seek something that he’s not even quite sure he deserves. 

He should have figured you were closed. But then he heard the sound of your voice and saw the tears in your eyes and now he’s worried. He is intrigued but worried, and you seem like you don’t want him to leave either. You tell him to close the door, to close the bubble around you, and give you time and space just the two of you, and it warms his heart. You warm his frozen heart, and the concern drives him closer to you. He even takes his jacket off, his knuckles no longer bandaged but bruised, and he doesn’t pull away this time when you look at them.

But you don’t ask. 

You pull the bottle of whisky from the fridge. He watches you carefully. The coffee maker roars as you brew a fresh batch and you foam some milk. You could do this with your eyes closed. Even tired, you know exactly what to do and how to do it, and now that the stress is gone, you don’t have to rush. 

Michael keeps quiet until he hears you pour whatever drink you’ve made into two porcelain cups. 

“It’s not a double espresso,” you murmur, “but I think you know and like this one.”

“What,” he chuckles, “no blue poison today? Or toffee nuts?”

You shake your head, the laugh dying on your tongue. 

“I liked the blue one.”

“Then you’re gonna like this one, too.”

You remove your apron and lean back, watching him carefully as he takes a sip. His eyes widen as he recognizes the distinctive taste, but then he looks even more surprised when tastes the undertones in his coffee. “Wow,” he says. “That is one hell of an Irish Coffee.”

“You like it?” Your eyes grow hopeful. 

“Like it? I fuckin’ love it.” He takes another sip. “What did ya– ya must be a wizard. No one can make Irish Coffee that good.”

“I’ve had some practice.”

“This is– wow.”

“You’re welcome.”

You stand there for a while, silently sipping your drinks. Michael is done first, but you follow shortly after. You take his cup and put it into the dishwasher, deciding to let it run one last time. 

“Did ya do that just for me?” he dares to ask. 

You shrug. “It’s better than a double espresso,” you say. 

“Are ya always this nice to strangers?”

“You’re not a stranger.”

“I am.”

You turn away with a sigh. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Yer so nice to people.”

“It’s my job.”

“But they’re not always nice to ya.” It’s not a question as much as it is an observation. 

You shake your head slightly, reaching for the small shot glasses you keep hidden away in the cupboard. 

“No offense, but ya sound like a real people pleaser.”

He hits the nail right on the head. You hate how obvious it is. Silence settles in between you. You don’t answer him, you simply place one of the glasses before him and pour some of the whisky you used for the coffee for both of you. 

He nods in acknowledgment. “Don’t ya ever get… I don’t know, angry? At the world, I mean. Like ya just want to burn it down and leave nothin’ behind because it sucks and it hates ya. Or ya hate the world? Or both. Does that happen to ya?”

You take the shot, your fave barely contorting before you find the guts to answer. “I get angry,” you whisper, but it sounds more like you’re trying to convince yourself.

“I mean really angry,” he says, “like you could punch a lad twice your size and win.”

“Everybody gets angry.”

“Ya do?”

“Mhm, but I don’t hate the world. Most of the time, at least. Sometimes, I just have a bad day, but I’m trying… I don’t know, it’s stupid.”

He takes his shot and you pour another glass. 

“Tell me,” he says. “I can tell ya’ve been crying.”

Of course, he can.

“I just want people to feel better around me, that’s why I’m nice because kindness goes a long way. Hatred… hatred doesn’t get you far. I’ve learned that the hard way and I… I just want to be good, so I try to be good, but sometimes it’s not enough, and that… that sucks because it always ends up being my fault anyway and that’s what makes trying so impossibly hard.”

“So yer a people pleaser,” he circles back to his previous statement, “but there’s nothin’ wrong with that. And that doesn't make shit yer fault all the time."

You didn’t expect to hear that.

“And yer good. Too good,” he says your name with such softness. “Ya managed to make me smile more than I’ve in a very long time. I wanted to say thanks fer that. I thought part of me… died. I've realized it's not dead, just buried."

“People usually call me a people pleaser and mean it in a bad way,” you say.

He smiles. “I don’t.”

“Yeah, I get that now.”

“So the world isn’t fair to ya, hm?”

You chuckle sadly. “It never was, but I’ve been worse and I’m somewhat happy now. I just–“

“Ya get walked over,” he finishes.

“Yeah.”

“And ya feel like yer not enough?”

You blink wildly to keep the tears at bay. “Yes.” 

“Were ya being nice to me out of kindness or ‘cause ya care?”

“Both,” you answer in a heartbeat. 

Your eyes meet again. He’s still the same magnet he was the first day you two met. He pulls you closer and closer, and you can feel yourself opening up to him. 

Michael smiles, taking another shot and then taking it upon himself to fill your glasses. 

“You’re different, Michael. I don’t know why, but you are.”

“I got yer notes,” the words slip him before he can stop himself. 

You nod. “That’s what they were meant for.”

“No one’s ever said that to me before.”

“That you have a nice smile?”

“All of it,” he says.

“That’s… sad,” you say. 

He shrugs. The whisky starts burning his esophagus. “My life’s sad.” 

“But does it have to be?”

“If only ya knew.”

You decide to take another step toward him. “I quit my job to become a writer, and now I work here.” 

He raises his eyebrows. “Yeah?”

You nod and start walking around the counter toward him. You’re so close again, he can feel your breath on his skin. 

“I’ve been writing ever since I was a child,” you say. “But it’s never been more than a hobby to my family, and so they didn’t understand when I wanted to study English literature. I landed behind a desk and I was unhappy, and I wanted to write. I’ve been told I’d fail ever since I started writing, and my parents still tell me the same thing. They’ve never supported it, so when I quit and then took this job, you can imagine how thrilled they were. Not.”

“I’m sorry,” he says. "I'm sure yer great. Maybe they just don't get ya."

He can’t imagine what you’ve been through because your lives are so inherently different, but he can feel your pain. He knows what it's like not to be understood, and he knows how much that can hurt coming from your own family.

He reaches out, your fingers mere inches away from each other now. 

“This was the first time I wasn’t trying to please anyone but myself,” you say, and your voice is barely above a whisper.

Michael nods, a silent sign of understanding, and then he takes your hand in his. “I wash cars fer a living,” he says.

You gave a big part of yourself and this is something he can tell you, even though it embarrasses him. 

You look up into his eyes. “Cars?” 

“Yeah. Fer my brother’s wife. You know the deli down by the gas station a little outside of downtown?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, there. She sells ‘em. She got me that job ‘cause I needed it. Now I wash cars.”

And getting a job with as many priors as he has is a hard task to achieve. But he knows he can be good at so many other things if he only tries. He just doesn’t have the same opportunities as everyone else, and that’s defeating. 

“Is that what you want to do?” you ask.

Has anyone ever asked him that before? He doubts it. You surprise him anew every time, and he’s not sure how to process or handle it. Michael doesn’t know how to read you. 

He doesn't answer your question in the way you want him to, either. “It’s what I have to do,” he says instead. 

“Is that what happened to your hand?” there it is – the question. “An accident washing cars?” 

“No, heh,” he takes another sip of his whisky. “Punched a hole in my mirror,” he says. 

“Why?”

“I hate the world and the world hates me.” 

You can see the unshed tears in his eyes, the pain he’s holding deep inside. He’s guarding himself for whatever reason, but his touch is warm and it screams for an escape. That’s the reason he came, you realize. He wants to escape whatever shit show his life is because, with you at the Butterfly Effect, he hates the world a little less. He doesn’t feel alone with you because while you don’t know him, you listen. You’re nice and you care about him. Judging from what he’s said, he’s not used to kindness or devotion, and it makes you sad. 

You squeeze his hand. “Everyone deserves someone to care about them,” you murmur, “even you, Michael.”

“I get angry,” he admits, and the tears become clearer. “I get really, really angry.”

“As I said, everyone does.”

“It’s a different kind of anger. The kind of anger that runs deeper. It’s darkness.”

He expects you to pull away, but you only hold on tighter, and you catch the tear in the corner of his eye before it can fall. “And that’s okay,” you say.

He wants to fall into your arms and sob, but his pride is stronger. His pride wants him to suffer.

“There must be a reason you come here and not just wallow in your anger. I mean, you’re driven by something other than darkness because I don’t see darkness when I look at you. I see light.”

You’re not pushing him, you’re simply nudging him as gently as only you can, and if he decides not to act on it, you’re okay with that too. He doesn’t feel forced, he feels almost accepted. 

“Why do you come here, Mikey?”

Mikey. This is the first time you use his nickname, and it sounds different coming from you. He likes it. 

“I don’t know,” he admits. 

It’s not just coffee and not just you, but he doesn’t know, not really – Michael doesn’t understand, and he hates that he doesn’t because he usually understands. Though this, he doesn’t. 

“Okay.” You leave it at that, but you refuse to let go of his hand. “That’s okay.” 

He intertwines your fingers, forming a safety net for his broken heart. They’re no longer on the counter now but dangling between the two of you. He’s holding you close, and his grip tells you that maybe he is afraid of letting go because he’s scared you might leave, which is absurd, but you quite like the way he’s holding onto you. You wouldn’t say no even if it killed you. 

You move a little closer, your shoulders brushing. He looks down. His thumb brushes over your knuckles. “So soft,” he says. 

You blush. 

“Do ya have a car?”

“I walked here,” you say.

“Want me to walk ya home? It’s dangerous out there.” 

“Who’s to say you’re not gonna murder me?”

He can sense the joking undertone in your voice and he chuckles. “Ya just need to trust me,” he says.

Weirdly enough, you do. Reluctantly, you let go of his hand. The rest of the cleaning is done easily. He helps you adjust the chairs in the seating area while you clean the coffee machine again, and after wiping the tables and adjusting the sign for the early shift the next day, there’s not much else you have to do. 

You let out a sigh of relief when you finally breathe fresh air and all of the day’s pain is left behind inside. 

Even though it’s a thirty-minute walk, Michael insists on walking with you. He doesn’t leave your side. Your hand finds his again after some time, and he reciprocates your touch instantly. You see nothing wrong with it. He makes you feel less alone, and you seem to be doing the same for him. 

You walk in silence, the wind brushing through your hair and getting caught in the stain on your blouse. You didn’t bring a jacket this morning, too much in a hurry to get to work to even care about the cold weather.

It seems like a chliché when Michael suddenly untangles himself from you and takes off his jacket. “Here,” he says. He looks at you, leaving no space for you to argue, so you take his offer gladly.

You suspected he would smell like ground coffee beans, but his cologne smells like tobacco and vanilla, and the faintest scent of rain hits your nose. You slide it on, instantly feeling a little warmer, but you’re not quite sure if it’s the jacket or the flush of blood in your cheeks that makes your heart beat faster. 

This time, your hands only brush as you walk. 

“What happened to yer shirt?” He breaks the silence.

You pull his jacket tighter around yourself. “I–“ you bite your lip. “Work accident,” you say. 

“Was it hot coffee?”

“A little.”

“Did you check if ya got burned?”

“It’s not the first time someone bumped into me, and they didn’t mean it,” you say, rushing to the defense of a total stranger, and that’s when you realize that perhaps he was right with the whole ‘people pleaser’ speech. 

You shake your head. Michael has gotten under your skin. He seems to notice it because he smiles softly, and reaches out to take your hand again. 

“Ya know what helps?” he asks.

“What?”

“An apron.”

“Fuck off!” You try to sound mean and furrow your brows at him, but you end up chuckling because damn him for looking so cute even while he also looks absolutely exhausted. 

He joins in your laughter.

“Seriously though, I hope whoever did this to ya didn’t do it on purpose.” He avoids eye contact, but his words hit home. 

“Or what, you’ll find them and break their hands?”

“Wasn’t thinkin’ about somethin’ so drastic, but they hurt ya and I don’t like the thought of ya gettin’ hurt.”

“What?”

“Nothin’,” he blushes. 

That was a lot of vulnerability for such a short amount of time. 

You look away just the same, trying to hide the effect he has on you, but he can feel your sweaty palms and how your pulse jumps under his fingers whenever he touches you. It’s no secret that you don’t see him as just a customer anymore, you never have. 

But this is Michael, and as soon as things start looking up for him, he is bound to ruin them because how can he possibly accept what you are willing to give him? He cares about you, and he hates that he has found himself in this situation again. But he can’t deny that he needs you. Feelings are treacherous, as is love and everything else that connects to it. To him it is, at least. And he’s really not sure what to do or what to think. He just knows that he wants you to be okay.

You stop in front of your apartment building. “This is me,” you say. 

The air shifts and the tension grows heavy. Your hand is still holding onto his, and you are still wearing his jacket. You attempt to take it off, but he stops you. 

“Keep it,” he says. 

“Aren’t you gonna be cold?”

“No.”

“But–“ 

“Ya still have a way to go, so keep it.”

You slip back into the jacket. “Okay. Thank you…”

“Yeah.”

Neither of you wants this to end, but it has to. 

You clear your throat. “I guess this means goodbye then.”

“Yeah,” he says. 

“Do you promise me to get home safe?”

“I’ll manage.”

“Okay.”

You turn around to leave. You take a few steps before stopping. He’s still there, waiting for you to get inside. You turn back to him.

Maybe it’s too much of a rash decision that is brewing up in your mind, but tonight has changed a lot. Your paths have crossed now. You’ve already crossed borders you told yourself not to. This isn’t you, this is a primal desire that drives you to take what you want and not give a flying fuck about pleasing someone else tonight, and it feels like you have finally learned how to breathe again.

He frowns when you walk back toward him. Your hands find their way on either one of his shoulders. Michael stares down at you. Your intentions aren’t entirely clear to him. 

Fuck it.

You wrap your arms around his neck and pull him down to capture his lips with yours. 

And when your lips finally meet, time stands still. 

At first, he’s surprised. Your lips feel softer than he imagined, and they fit perfectly on his. It feels like you’ve done this a million times. His head spins. Then, he kisses back. 

Michael’s arms wrap around your waist and pull you closer. It's a carnal desire, not his own free will. You feel so good pressed against him, and your lips are magic as they dance with his. 

He’s convinced now that you are good at everything. 

His tongue pokes your bottom lip, asking for permission. You let him in. He explores your mouth with precision, tasting you, memorizing you, and making sure you stay imprinted in his bloodstream. He breathes your air and you breathe his. The world around you no longer exists. 

You are more than willing to suffocate at his hands with his lips on yours and his body so close, you can smell his shampoo and feel the softness of his hair under your fingers as you run them through the brown curls. He’s ethereal, absolutely beautiful, and he feels like heaven and tastes like the sweetest temptation that will land you in hell, but it is all so good, too good, absolutely perfect – he has put an irreversible spell on you, and his lips sealed the deal. 

Though your body is quick to scream for you to pull away and breathe. It’s been a while since you’ve consciously used your lungs. You could get lost in him any day, your life be damned. If you’re right with your suspicions, you’re fucked anyway, but you don’t mind. Not with him. Not when it’s Michael.

You both pull away at the same time. His hand rests on your cheek, barely touching, but he’s sure to hold you there.

Without another word, you press another chaste kiss to his lips. He reciprocates. 

“I should go,” your breathing is heavy as you speak. “I, uh, have an early day tomorrow.”

Michael nods, his nose brushing against yours. He’s going to regret tonight, but you’re by far his favorite sin. He felt free when you kissed him. It doesn’t seem real, but you’re still so close and he can taste your chapstick. You’re real, this is real, and you’ve caught him before he could fall. 

But he’s going to regret it, he always does.

“Yeah, me too,” he whispers. “Early day.”

He has work in the morning, so it isn’t a lie.

You pull away completely, your cheeks flushed and your lips swollen. Now you don’t look cute anymore, you look absolutely edible, and Michael has to physically force his hands to stay where they are. 

Scratching the back of your head, you desperately search for your keys. Once you’ve found them, you wave an awkward goodbye. “See ya,” you say. 

He watches as you disappear behind the door to your apartment building, and a few seconds later, you’re gone.

You only allow yourself to register what happened once you’re in the comfort of your home, your back pressed against the door, and you slide down. 

Damn.

You just kissed a man you don’t even know half of, and you enjoyed it. 

Whoever Michael truly is moves into the back of your mind – his lips still linger and it’s what you will take to bed with you. Not the fact that you don’t even know his last name but his touch and his smile. 

The day might have started badly, but you can’t deny that it ended with an unexpected surprise that made all the bad from before dissipating into nothing at all.

You wonder how many more times you have to take the first step before he will finally open himself up to you. But no matter what, you’re determined to find out. 

Tagging: @bellaxgiornata @loveroftoomanyfandoms @acharliecoxedfan @lina-mar @itwasthereaminuteago @mattkinsella

[pancreasman]

My own Sonic 3: a very bad dumb thesis

I haven’t been able to physically stop thinking about the third sonic movie so I was like fuck it I’m gonna write all this down but fuck it’s so long now. I did this instead of sleeping wtf.

Part 1: old characters and their arcs

Sonic

Sonic’s thing in this movie is finding his destiny as a hero and where he belongs in the universe. It has to end with him saying bye to his human dad John or whatever his name is because I’m pretty sure these movies are meant to serve as origins. Or at least that’s how I’m treating it.

I think our first look at sonic after the last movie would be him struggling to lay low. He would be doing small-town hero work and trying to explore green hill as much as he can but he’s got a bit of a “when will my life begin” “part of your world” shtick going on. He’s itching to get out there and he’s also kind of questioning his own origins. He doesn’t know what he is or where he’s from except that he’s a hedgehog with power he doesn’t understand.

I like imagining a scene where he rewatched that hologram from Longclaw over and over looking for some sort of clue about his origins but he just can’t find anything. Later in the movie perhaps he’ll reuinite with Longclaw or maybe she’s like dead or something idk.

So when he hears about Planet Mobius for the first time he is immediately intrigued by the idea of other people like him. So he has to choose between earth and that new place. And then when Shadow comes into the mix and introduces the chaos emeralds, which are revealed to share the same type of power as Sonic, that throws an extra wrench into the mix.

Overall, Sonic’s arc is just taking everything he learned and experienced in the last two movies and using it to become the hero of Mobius and he leaves and becomes the Sonic the hedgehog we know today.

Tails

This is his realizing he’s a badass arc. He probably has one of the more simple arcs of the cast. He starts out wanting to be like Sonic, but after failing to be like Sonic, he realizes he can only be like himself.

Tails’ real shining points are in his relationships with other characters. I want a montage of Sonic and Tails broing out and doing dumb kid things. Tails just thinks Sonic is endlessly cool and Sonic thinks Tails is endlessly cool and Sonic protects him from danger and they have sibling vibes and aghhh

I also like the idea that Tails and Amy know each other because I think that friendly reunion would be cute. I know Tails said he didn’t have any friends on his home planet but Idk I just want a scene where Tails shows up after Amy and Sonic have already been introduced and they’re so excited to see each other and Amy’s like “you’ve been taking care of him all this time? Thank you so much!” To Sonic and they’re just good friends and they hug that’s all I want

Knuckles

Knuckles’ whole deal is an internal conflict between his past and his future, his sense of responsibility with his true wants. He’s been on earth for a bit, he’s becoming accustomed, he’s vibing, but he’s sort of latched onto the idea of assuming Sonic’s responsibility of looking after the master emerald out of guilt for the actions of his ancestors.

Yes, his people obviously didn’t deserve to be slaughtered, but the master emerald was there thanks to their recklessness, and now he must protect it not only from those who might use it for evil but as the final remnant of his past.

So he’s kind of latched onto that idea and still holds some of his previous ideals about honor and legacy. However, as the story goes on we see him break from his ideas of preserving the past and rather paving way for the future. And also just letting himself catch a break and getting over the guilt and the responsibility he’s put on himself. Part of this breakthrough is through Amy which I will talk about later.

Also he hates Rouge. But also kinda digs her. Idk they just argue a lot but also they fight and it would be so cool. I talk about it more in Rouge’s section

Also the part in sonic 2 where knuckles hoists up Tails like he’s his little brother that’s. That’s the vibe with him and Tails. All three of them are brothers and Sonic and Knuckles fight a lot but they will kill for Tails and they’re bros.

Part 2: new characters and their personalities (and voice headcannons)

Rouge

first scene of the movie is her trying to steal the master emerald. After teaming up with shadow and Robotnik, she inevitably gets betrayed and has a change of heart, then switches to the good side.

I want her to be the funniest character in the movie aside from Shadow. She will be the snarkiest, campiest, bestest girl. And I want the animators to go all out giving her expressive character acting and charm. However, while doesn’t take herself too seriously and isn’t afraid to crack a joke or tease an opponent, she’s also fucking deadly and incredibly cool. Let her be cool because she is cool.

I imagine the movie would start with your standard good vs evil teams, but at some point Rouge gets redeemed and switches over to Sonic’s team and Sonic begins to go with Shadow to find out more about the chaos emeralds and his past.

Anyway, the most interesting relationships she has in the movie are with Knuckles and Shadow. The very first scene of the movie I think should be Rouge and Knuckles meeting, then bantering and flirting, her trying to steal the emerald, and them fighting before she escapes. When she gets her redemption they continue to argue and banter, but it’s cute and they’re on the same team now, even if Knuckles insists he doesn’t trust her.

Her friendship with Shadow I think would need several scenes dedicated to it cause I really want them to bond. I want Rouge to take him under her wing and implant the idea of mistrust in Shadow’s head and then have to deal with the repercussions of treating him that way after her redemption. I want them to trauma-bond. They’re gonna be besties and then there will be a fallout but they’ll be left with a profound respect and admiration for one another.

Now, for the biggest debate in all of sonic history. Should she keep her boobs? I say yes because it would be funny to see parents get offended by a bat with boobies. But also as a woman it’s nice to see those kinds of body types in a non-sexual context and movies like this are no exception.

Also if you haven’t already seen I am a firm believer that she needs to be voiced by Wendie Malick. If you need convincing, go find my proof of concept animatic that is totally serious and not a shitpost.

Amy

In this movie she’s a general, sort of like in forces, but she still prides herself on being very cute and is still super sweet. She’s just a little more level-headed and has more of a goal since she doesn’t already know Sonic and wouldn’t have a motivation otherwise.

Amy comes from Mobius. She is going after Rouge after finding out she has a chaos energy detector and needing to find out that she’s up to.

Her relationship with Sonic is not necessarily romantic as I imagine that the moviemakers wouldn’t want to include that. However, it’s like the closest it can possibly get without crossing the barrier. I want to play with the idea of Amy being the more level-headed, caring, and detail-oriented one of the group. She’s there to remind everyone to slow down and use their heads. I want to see a scene where Sonic becomes overwhelmed and feels the need to rush into battle, but Amy centers him and time literally slows down, like a slo-mo shot, she becomes his anchor in that moment and is the only thing able to slow him down.

After Rouge’s redemption, they become besties and we can have a girl power moment during battle.

She also has a moment with Knuckles after he learns she’s part echidna which inspires him to think about a possibly different future for the echidna legacy as he’s never heard of a hybrid echidna before. Before that moment, the two would have likely butted heads.

I like the head cannon of her being Anna Kendrick. But for some reason, when thinking about it originally my first thought for her was Kristen bell. Idk I think it fits

Shadow

honestly I think that prime would be a pretty good blueprint for Shadow’s personality in the movie as he’s fucking awesome in that show, but I think the key difference is giving Shadow this sense of grief. He’s just full of anger and sorrow and fear because he just woke up from this 50 year stasis and is suddenly confronted with a lot of responsibility and stuff going on. Like a cross between his debut self in SA2 and his prime self.

Other than that, make him reckless and impulsive but also have this inflated ego and sense of justice or righteousness. But also let him get a little cocky during a fight and crack a joke every once in a while. You know, personality.

His role in the story is he’s brought back by Robotnik in order to complete the Robotnik family legacy and to harness the chaos emeralds to take over the world.

He has already been exposed to the information about the Chaos emeralds and so part of his role in the story is actually introducing this stuff to Sonic.

Like, I want a scene where Shadow explains how Sonic’s power and the emeralds’ power are one in the same, yet he doesn’t know why or how, and he shows Sonic how to use chaos control.

I think initially he and Sonic would be similar to Knuckles and Sonic in the second movie where they just kind of fight and Sonic is like “who is this chump” but as each of them become genuinely curious about Sonic and the emeralds and Shadow gets suspicious of Robotnik, they sort of convene and try to find the truth. And they’re each trying to bring the other to their own side, but then they realize they’re kind of on the same side anyway.

And then at the end we find out his dramatic backstory with Maria and Gerald. I physically NEED us to see his backstory in the movie it would be so good. I want to see Shadow being created. His adventures with Maria and them bonding, and then her tragic death. And I want Maria to be played either by some random Disney channel child actress who will become a pop icon in the next 5 years or a random child actress from a very sad movie I’ve never heard of.

Also, if paramount wants the fans to be happy, all the Sonic and Shadow fights need to be animated by sonadow shippers I don’t make the rules that’s how you please us.

As for Shadow’s voice, I’m thinking Norman Reedus. He’s just kind of a badass and I think he could suit the role well. Also I find it funny

Part 3: the Jim issue… the jimssue. Nevermind

Eggman

So, you may be wondering: how is eggman supposed to return if Jim Carrey retired? Well I have an idea and I think it’s fucking hilarious. My pitch is thus: Jim Carrey is not OUR egg man. OUR egg man that we see in the games is actually agent stone

We all know agent stone is kind of fruity, so what’s fruitier than taking your dead lover’s name, bioengineering yourself beyond recognition to achieve his intellect and completing his family’s legacy of project shadow in his honor?

Then it could even tie in to Knuckles’ theme about the difference between carrying on a legacy and letting it take over who you are as a person. While he’s no Jim Carey, I still like the actor for Stone and think it’s such a stupid idea it just might work.

Plus, I imagine Eggman ends up following sonic to Mobius and I love the idea of every evil plot that he commits in cannon being fueled by him grieving his dead gay lover Jim Carrey who’s identity he stole.

Part 4: Misc

(Btw if you’re wondering why I haven’t mentioned any of the new human characters yet that’s because I don’t care about them)

Other things include a shot of mobius where we can get a bunch of character cameos in the background like team chaotix or cream and Vanilla.

We can get a modern band to do a cover of escape from the city because I feel like that’s the song everyone knows but we got to get crush 40 to do a remastered version of live and learn.

Knuckles needs to stop talking like a robot it’s weird especially in the end scene of sonic 2 why does he talk like that. I imagine that considering they’re giving him his own spin-off series this will end up being toned down but I just hope it’s not laid on as thick in sonic 3. I’m fine with him not understanding earth stuff cause like he’s an alien but he doesn’t have to speak in fractured sentences.

Pumpkin hill leitmotif. I don’t care where I don’t even care if they don’t go to pumpkin hill just put in the doo doo doo-doo doo-doo doo-doo-do-

Part 5: conclusion

So yeah I think that’s it…

…

Bye.

[gabeorelse]

Not going anonymous cause I wanted to say hi over here officially!

I haven’t gotten the chance to ask you about your work yet! Tell me about your current WIP. What is it about, who are the protagonist(s) and the villain(s), what is your biggest inspiration behind it?

Hi!!! Nice to meet you :D I don't know if I ever introduced myself officially other than yelling at your posts but I go by Gabe (hey/they but either is fine!). Thank you for the ask!! So I actually have two wips at the moment - one is a high fantasy with horror and science fiction elements, and the other is a literary fiction with magical realism elements. I'll talk mostly about the first but I might give in and ramble a bit about the second because that's what I'm working on actively atm.

SO. My most recent WIP, which on my blog is called Empire of Death, is about an empire very loosely (VERY loosely) based on the Roman empire, wherein the upper class command necromantic powers by way of controlling eldritch gods.

The way this works: once, eldritch gods ruled, then a man rose up and defeated them. Of the two main gods, who were partners sharing the powers of life/death, he killed one and forced the other to give him his powers. From then on, he used these powers to expand his rule. Necromancy comes from these godly powers, but it's more like life/death manipulation. I'll try not to get into the worldbuilding too much, but a lot of the horror elements come from consuming: people consume godsblood to get necromancy, priests consume the flesh of gods to perform certain magicks, etc.

Several hundred years later, the emperor's line is ending and the entire empire is unstable/in slow decline. Valeria Atalusco, the last of the imperial line in a world where no woman has ever taken the throne, announces that she will attend the Thaedycrux, which is THE college dedicated to the top necromancers. Her goal is to eventually take the throne. It's an opportunistic thing; her brother, the true heir, just died, and she's kind of panicking because now SHE carries the bloodline powers.

Meanwhile, Adriel is a nobody in the empire: he's a 'diumo' (nonbinary), and part of a religious minority that the empire basically swallowed up. He would rather forget everything that makes him different, but his brother became a radical rebel (he thinks) and was arrested and sentenced to an eternal sentence in the imperial legions. So he hates the empire, but he also hates the rebels. It's complicated, and even more so considering he only gets by because his brother's mentor, Galeo Casaro, has kind of looked out for him.

But Galeo has a plan: see, he's a politician, but he's also part of a cult dedicated to bring back the VERY violent rule of the eldritch gods. So Galeo has been working with the two main gods who once ruled as a couple: one is enslaved by the imperial line, their soul passed down through each heir (So now it's in Valeria), and he's managed to get his hands on the other. He recruited Adriel's brother into his cult and planned to plant this soul into his body, then raise him through the ranks to overthrow the imperial line and take back the other god, but things went wrong, Adriel wound up (unknowingly) with the god's soul, and now Galeo is scrambling. He puts together a plan: send Adriel to this college under some lame pretext, and manipulate Adriel into winning Valeria over. He's been communicating with the god inside Adriel, who has assured him that they will take care of the finer details.

(This is so horribly confusing, I'm sorry.)

So if you're keeping track: Adriel's brother was not actually a rebel, but the empire blamed the rebels when he + Galeo got his hands on the soul of the god (the rebels do show up later lmao). Adriel and Valeria are possessed by two gods in love, and Galeo has manipulated them into the same place so that Adriel's god will take control of the situation and rescue Valeria's god. Adriel just wants to undo his brother's sentence, and Galeo has assured him that if he wins Valeria over to his side, she will definitely do that (yeah, right).

So what you have: a wild fake dating situation in which neither Adriel nor Valeria knows about the actual plan, which to be fair, is covered up by about three different other plans. Am I insane? Maybe. Galeo thinks he's in control, but Adriel's god is more in the 'I'll do whatvever the fuck I want to get my partner back' vibe. It's very weird, gory, violent, and according to those who have read parts....funny?

My inspirations: Gideon the Ninth is a huge one for me, but also a recent book I read called The West Passage (which I highly recommend if you love reading really weird stuff). In terms of political stuff, I've been inspired by Dune, Game of Thrones, and a lot of nonfiction too. I also am a huge fan of horror, so the more horror-y aspects come from some of my favorite horror aficionados like Mike Flanagan and some of Ari Aster's stuff.

Also I won't talk about my second WIP because this got WAY too long and I feel like I just dug a very deep, confusing hole with no way out, but I hope it all makes sense!! And thank you so much for the ask, I really appreciate it :D If you need a shorter, blurb type thing, I think I have one as my pinned post which probably makes way more sense.

[joekeeryswife]

I’m a Celebrity - J.Q

this is SHIT! i am sorry for everyone who’s been waiting on this but it is honestly so bad. send me some requests lives so i can make better content- even though it is shit, enjoy my loves <3

btw i haven’t really been posting much because my second niece has been born and i just wanted to soak up the family time i guess. thank you for being patient sweethearts 🤍

it was three days until the final and there was only you, Alison Hammond, Olivia Atwood and Owen Warner left. this had felt like the longest three weeks of your life. being so far away from your home made you felt uneasy and you were shocked that you made it this far. you missed your family so much. so so so much. you'd never been this far away from Joseph or your beautiful baby girl Tommy ever. you had given birth to Tommy only 9 months ago and leaving her at such an early age made you nervous.

even though the experience was amazing this was the first time you were away from your baby and Joseph and you were so close to the end but you just wanted to quit and be back with your little family. you were in camp, Alison and Olivia were laughing at some jokes that they had but you just felt out of place. you just wanted to be back home and being so close to the end just made the ache in your heart grow stronger.

Owen saw you sat on your bed, in a trance. it was obvious that you were missing your baby and he wanted to comfort you. "hey y/n. you feeling alright?" he asked, sitting next to you on your bed. "hi. i'm okay thanks. just missing my baby. it's the first time i've been away from her and it's just really hard. same with Joseph, the last time we were away from each other for this long was years ago." you felt yourself tearing up as you spoke about your husband and your baby.

Owen felt nothing but sympathy for you. of course everyone was missing someone but it seemed to be hitting you the most. he put his arm around your shoulders and pulled you into him. Owen was like a brother to you and he was definitely the one you would speak to if you were feeling down. you to were quite close in age so you felt like you really connected to him because of that.

he rubbed your arm comfortingly as you tried to stop yourself from crying. you absolutely hated crying in front of people and being in here with these people for three weeks was no exception. "listen, i'm not to good with comforting people but just think, three days and it's all finished and you can spend as much time as you want with your baby. she is probably watching you every night and is so proud of you" you couldn't help but feel some sort of comfort when he said that.

she probably was watching you with Joseph and she would remember you when you got back. "i know it's getting harder because it's the last three days but it's the final push and then it's all over. i promise you that she is okay and she will be waiting for you as soon as you get back to the hotel" he reassured, making you send him a soft smile.

"thanks Owen. i really needed that" you said, resting your head on his shoulder. no this wasn't in an 'i love you' way it was a friendship way and you loved Owen as a friend. you definitely would be keeping in touch with him once you left the villa and you hoped that he and Joseph would get along.

"you know when i first saw you on the first day i shit myself because i was a massive fan and i didn't know how to approach you but you're really nice and i see why you have so many followers" he said, making you laugh loudly. "well, hard work does get you places" you replied, looking around camp.

it was then when a producer told you all that you had different trials that you had to do which were in different parts of the jungle. you slipped on your fleece coat and your hat before saying goodbye to the others who were all going off in random directions. you made your way through the familiar path which usually led you to where a few challenges were held and you honestly were scared.

you hated being nominated for challenges but you just prayed it didn't have anything to do with spiders. spiders were one of your biggest fears and if this had something to do with spiders you'd honestly cry. you didn't want to deal with a trial today, after feeling so down from missing everyone a trial was the last thing you needed.

you turned the corner to where the trial was being held and was shocked to see Joseph standing there. he was sat on the bench which was randomly placed by a tree. you were shocked. you felt like you couldn't move. obviously three weeks wasn't a long time but you had missed him so much that you felt like it had been months. he stood up from the bench and walked over to you, a wide smile spread across his face.

you walked into him, wrapping your arms tightly around his waist. "hi sweetheart" he let his hand stroke your hair as he comforted you as you cried quietly into his chest. he knew you were missing him, he was watching every night and he just knew. you'd been together for years and he could just read you by your facial expression.

“oh Joseph. i’ve missed you so much” you couldn’t believe he was here. “i’m here baby, you’ve done so well my love” he kissed your forehead and held you closer even though you didn’t think it was possible. he held you for a while before pulling back, taking your face into his hands. “you have done so, so well y/n. you’ve done us all proud” you wiped your cheeks and smiled up at him.

“is everyone okay? is Tommy okay? i feel so bad for leaving you all-” “hey! everyone is fine and Tommy has been watching with me. she smiles every time she sees you on the screen. she misses you” you couldn’t take it, you really wanted your baby girl here with you.

“we are so proud of you y/n. you have so many people voting for you. all of your fans are posting about you and it’s honestly crazy. you have three days left my love. three days, and then you can come home and you can spend all the time you want with Tommy. she’s so excited to see you”

as you listened to Joseph talk, you realised three days was practically nothing compared to what you had been through. three days until you could finally see your beautiful baby girl and it would be worth the wait. “now you go out there, do your last trial and win. everyone is rooting for you and we know you can do it.” you knew, three days was all it was and you could do this

[eddiemunsonswhxre]

where have i been?

an update for those curious.

hey there my loves, long time no see.

i’m not sure how many of you will actually read this or care to see why i haven’t written in over a year now but typing this stuff out helps me process and get back into my groove.

well, today is january 16, 2024. the last thing i posted that was an actual one shot was posted on january 3, 2023. i haven’t written since. 2023 was my worst year yet and caused me to learn a lot about people and myself.

things were going alright in the beginning, i was in my second semester of college and my biggest problem was 2 of my 3 roommates (lived in a quad) hated each other so me and my bestie/3rd roommate had to play mediator and it was exhausting. i started liking a guy and got my hopes up. and i started to get more and more annoyed with school and my living situation every day. i was ecstatic to move out of that room despite hating my hometown. the day of move out, one of my roommates who i thought was someone very close to me blocked me and all of our friends on everything with no explanation but we knew she wasn’t coming back for 23-24.

i like where i grew up for a maximum of a week at a time, after that my depression just kicks my ass and im not having a great time. my plan for the summer was to work my ass off so much so that i wouldn’t have time to think of anything else. that backfired, because a few days after i came home one of my two jobs fell through unexpectedly and my other job was giving me less than half the hours they promised me. i was broke. everyone says it’s so easy to get a job these days because everyone is hiring but i applied to over ten places within a reasonable distance from me and didn’t get a single one. so i spent too much time with myself and that’s not normally a good thing.

to make matters even worse, in june my mom was sentenced to three years in prison for a crime she committed back in 2020. i don’t want to get into too many specifics, but my mom would never harm anyone she just has struggled with addiction. my mom was my constant emotional support, and knowing she was no longer going to be around ripped me to shreds. not even a month later after my mom was shipped off to prison, my dog died. and i know you might think “dogs die all the time it’s a pet.” but my dog was much more than that. she wasn’t even three years old and was a beautiful great pyrenees german shepard mix and she was the sweetest girl ever. i don’t care how ridiculous it sounds, because i know my soul and hers were meant to be together. i was even in the process of registering her as an emotional support animal so i could take her to college with me because she was finally old enough and for the most part out of the puppy phase. but one night out of nowhere she got really sick and within an hour of her showing signs something was wrong she died while i was holding her. not the greatest thing for a 19 year old who’s already struggling to experience. it took my over a month to stop seeing her like that every time i closed my eyes. call me dramatic, but that dog really was a child to me.

after that, i went to stay with my cousin for a few weeks and that was nice but i still knew i wasn’t feeling right. i moved back to school in august and had way too high of hopes that everything would fix itself. surprise, it didn’t. in fact, i just got worse. i reached lows i haven’t hit in over two years. i was having roommate problems, i was trying to do way too much at once, and i was neglecting my health. i had a breakdown.

the highlight of my semester was taking a week off to visit my best friend since age 2 for her birthday (she lives roughly a 2 hour plane ride away from me now) with our other two best friends. then i came back and immediately totaled my car. my car was a piece of shit yes, but it got me places. not having a car when you’re a person who drives around to destress is not fun. i was even worse mentally at this point and i was trying so so hard to get into my overbooked doctor to get my medications raised. the only constant i had were my three friends at school and my studies. so i threw myself into them. i was never alone and if i was i was nose deep in a text book. i was just avoiding the rest of my existence. i was able to get my meds upped and decided i was done wallowing. i started a diet that is actually manageable and enjoyable and discovered for the first time workouts that i actually liked doing. it was something small, but i knew i was turning myself around.

i went home for winter break knowing it was going to be tough. i also had to spend this time looking for a new car. it was an extremely stressful process to say the least. but i focused on myself, taking all the time for myself that i needed and processing everything that had made me get to such a bad place. i’ve always been very spiritual, so i dove more into that as well as trusting the universe.

i’ve decided that 2024 will be my best year yet. i got a new car, im getting a new job, im doing great in school, my mom is getting released from prison literally six hours after i post this, and im taking care of myself in more ways than one. while doing a lot of that reflecting, i remembered how much i used to love to write and how that passion just died after loving it since i was ten. i started small, doing short story exercises and getting into reading again. i finally, after an entire year, have my passion for writing back.

i can’t promise i’ll be consistent with uploads because i’ve decided that my goal for the year is to write a novel. so that project is going to be my main focus and it isn’t anything fanfic related, it’s actually a psychological thriller. more than likely i will be asking for opinions on here throughout the year as well.

with that said, my plans this year for this blog are to keep posting. eddie munson is mainly who i write for, but i want to expand my horizons. i want to challenge myself with genres and types of characters. i will greatly appreciate any requests you can give and i promise i will read through them. if i don’t post them right away, just know it may come out three months later. sometimes inspiration sparks at weird times.

if you’ve read this far, thank you. i hope this can inspire you to see that there’s light at the end of the tunnel but sometimes you’ve gotta dig the extra dirt to it yourself. beyond thankful to anyone who was here a year ago and has come back to read my new stuff- you made an aspiring writer really proud of herself.

much much love

-eddiemunsonswhxre 🤍

[alwaysahiccupandastrid]

I didn’t want to be a hater of the new Peter Pan remake before it even started, and I’m not hating, but as someone who cherishes the original book and various adaptations of the story, I do have some things I need to say regarding the Disney remake.

Firstly, I’ve seen people complain about the diversity - namely Peter and Tinkerbell. I don’t have a problem with non-white actors playing any parts - I think Yara is beautiful as Tinkerbell and I’m intrigued to see what Alexander Molony brings since the trailer didn’t really showcase much of him as Peter. The Lost Boys especially being a diverse group makes sense to me as they’re “lost” - they should all look different; I welcome the casting of non-white, disabled etc boys in the gang. Anyone complaining about “wokeness” just because they’re not all pasty white kids is just racist; I’ve even seen people complaining Tiger Lily isn’t white, which…? Hello??? She has NEVER been white, she and her tribe have always been Native Americans.

Having said that, the Lost Boys should all still be boys - “girls are much too clever to fall out of their prams”, and the fact that Wendy is the first girl they meet and they see her as a motherly figure because the only girls/women they’ve ever known have presumably been fairies, Tiger Lily (who is a princess in her tribe) or the distant memories they hold of their own mothers. Supposedly you could argue that “Lost Boys” is just the name of their gang, regardless of whether it’s boys or girls in the group, but still… I don’t know. Maybe I’m just old-fashioned, but I don’t particularly agree with this change. But honestly, it’s not the end of the world, I can get over it.

“Wahhh they’ve made Wendy the main character and not Peter Pan!!!” — my guys… the original novel was LITERALLY called Peter and Wendy. The book literally opens with this paragraph:

“All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather de- lightful, for Mrs. Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, “Oh, why can’t you remain like this for ever!” This was all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end.”

This is literally Wendy’s story that ends with her deciding to go home and grow up; we meet Peter through her eyes, not the other way around. If you’re that mad that Wendy is being given a big part, you clearly haven’t bothered to read the source material and you’re just mad because you don’t like the idea of the female character being the protagonist.

If you want to take an issue with casting/characters, look at Hook/Mr Darling: how they’ve made Hook look aside (although… mmm, yikes), Disney has decided not to have the same actor play Hook and Mr Darling - Hook is Jude Law and Mr Darling is Alan Tudyk. I have nothing to comment on either of them as actors: my issue is that it’s a tradition for the same actor to play both of them that originates back to when the story was a stage play and has carried over to other media adaptations of the story. Having the same actor play both parts adds extra layers to the story (the relationship with the father vs fighting Captain Hook, parallels between the two characters, the subtext between Wendy and Hook as she’s on the cusp of adulthood etc).

My main issue though? The colour palette of this film - and all the Disney remakes, in fact.

I think the current colour palette of dull greys and muted greens could have worked for the London scenes because then the contrast between it and Neverland would have been even more striking; Neverland is a magical place where the children don’t want to grow up. Barrie wrote in his book that the Neverlands are found in the minds of children; although each is "always more or less an island" as well as having a family resemblance, they are not the same from one child to the next. For example, John’s Neverland had "a lagoon with flamingos flying over it," while Michael's had "a flamingo with lagoons flying over it." Neverland should be magical and colourful to reflect this, because a child’s imagination is limitless.

This just looks… dull. Like they’ve put a filter over it to make it look gritty.

In comparison, this is how the original animated film looked:

“But it’s live action, of course it’ll look less colourful” - wrong. The 2003 live action managed to make Neverland look twice as colourful as this new film, and that was released two entire decades before:

It’s not just this remake: it’s most remakes quite frankly - The Lion King, Little Mermaid, etc.

I don’t want to hate on the film when it’s not actually out yet, and I’m going to reserve full judgement until it does release, but I feel like people are claiming anyone with criticism is just being racist when there are genuine critiques and concerns. As I said, I don’t have any issue with the casting or in diversifying the cast, my issue comes from the colour palette of the film, the changes from the source material where there don’t need to be changes, and also the fact that Disney (and most other companies for that matter) should waste less money on pointless remakes and spend more resources producing original content.

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Super 091

“All right, so after fifteen hours of careful consideration, I believe the key to victory is to avoid getting thrown off the edge of the stage.”

“Yes, but shouldn’t we also throw our opponents over the edge as well?”

“Hmmm... you raise an excellent point, sir.  We may need several more episodes to discuss this matter.  It’s a good thing we have these photos of our team roster to help us remember who’s on our team.”

All right, this is another potpourri episode, like 85 and 88.  The framing sequence here is the two Grand Zenos, who are bored with their game of hitting each other with a toy hammer.  The Grand Minister gives them an update on preparations for the Tournament of Power.

Vegeta’s going to spend some time in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber again, but Mr. Popo warns him that if he blows up the entrance again, he’ll be banned for life. 

In Universe 9, they still haven’t gotten their team assembled, and they only have the three guys they fielded for the Zeno Expo.  Also, when they try to tell anyone about the tournament, riots break out when people hear about the impending erasure.  So the planet they’re currently scouting is a lost cause.  Sidrah destroys it and they move on to the next world.

In Universe 6, Hit tracks down Frost and informs him that he’s been drafted for the Tournament of Power.  If he refuses the invitation, Hit will assassinate him, but Frost is eager for the chance to redeem himself.  Hit warns him to remove all the poison needles from his body, as they’re forbidden.

In Universe 7, Yamcha is still waiting for his invitation to join the team, but Roshi wants Puar instead. 

Yeah, so Puar’s a shapeshifter, and Roshi wants him to turn into a sexy woman so that Roshi can train himself to overcome his horniness.  Puar hates this idea, because duh.  But Yamcha tells him to go through with it, because it seems important.

Yeah... this is pretty awful.

Believe it or not, this sounds worse than it looks.

Also, why is there a wooden shed on top of Yamcha’s apartment building?  This is what I mean when I say zero thought was put into his home.  It’s not a dump or a fancy bachelor pad.  They just drew some stuff and called it a day.   “Wait, where’s Yamcha supposed to park his riding lawn mower?”  “He can just leave it on the roof?”  “What if it rains?” “Good point, we’d better add a shed.”

Oolong hates this scene so much that he asks if he can just leave.  I don’t know why he came here in the first place.

Since Vegeta isn’t around, Goku and Whis spar in Vegeta’s gravity room.  Goku bites Whis’ hand.

In Universe 11, Top has summoned the Pride Troopers to assemble for the Tournament, but General Khaseral is running late.  They call him to find out what the hold up is...

And he’s trying to save a cat from a tangle of power lines.  Or something.  I feel like a superhuman should be able to solve this problem more decisively, but the general insists he save this life before he worries about the rest of his universe. 

In Universe 2... Well, I don’t know what this guy is supposed to be.  I thought they were going to zoom out and show this image was part of a billboard or something, but no.  They just smash cut from this...

To this.  I mean, it’s all pretty.  I like the aesthetic, but I don’t understand any of it.  Universe 2 is holding auditions for their team, and people are lined up to try out.

This one lady cuts to the front of the line, and these two hopefuls object.  Are they supposed to be drag queens?  I think that’s what the dub is going for.  I mean, do they have super powers or what’s going on here, exactly?

Anyway, the lady who cuts ahead of them is Brianne De Chateau, and she responds to their objections by going a whole transformation into...

Rebrianne, who blows them up with some sort of magical girl attack.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge Rebrianne mark.  She fucking rules.  But I don’t pretend to understand anything that happened in this scene.  Like, I know U2 is all about beauty and love, and that somehow translates into fighting power, but this episode makes it look like she just rolled up to an open casting call and brazenly attacked anyone in her way.  Also, I thought Brianne was a celebrity of sorts?  Kind of like the Pride Troopers in U11?  Maybe that’s what this scene was trying to convey.  She doesn’t have to stand in line because she already has a spot on the team, and those two ladies she blew away didn’t recognize her. 

All I know for sure is this:  There’s a new Budokai Tenkaichi game coming.  And Rebrianne better be in it.  Because I want to do this move on Vegeta. 

“Tee-hee!  It’s on sight, Vegeta!”

Meanwhile, the U10 team is recording a stupid video as a team-building exercise.  Gowasu thinks this will get him a lot of hits on Godtube.

This is dumb as hell, but what makes it dumber is that they’re still wearing those stupid robes!  How is this supposed to do numbers on GodTube when you can’t see anyone?!  This is exactly why U10 loses hard.

And finally, back in Universe 7, Bulma gets a call from Mr. Satan and it turns out Buu has fallen asleep and won’t wake up.  Beerus is outraged, and lists all of the other times Buu has fucked him over in the past.  You know, when you put it that way, it’s kind of badass the way Majin Buu keeps ruining Beerus’s day.  All he’s done is take three naps and eat a bunch of pudding, and now this cat-dude is traumatized for life.

[sullina-nnt]

Imagine a modern au, the demons and goddesses are rival companies, and are deciding to collaborate on something or another. Now obviously, there’s tension between the two companies, so to smooth the way for not just themselves but also to not seem suspicious to the rest of the world (for whatever reason), they decide that marriage is the way to go.

Only, who do they marry?

Obviously, the ones next in line for the seats of CEO: Meliodas and Ludociel

Why not Elizabeth? Well, Elizabeth didn’t agree with company policies, so she “wasn’t suitable”.

Now obviously, there couldn’t be any worse candidates than Meliodas and Ludociel. The two hate each others guts, but the DK and SD don’t care, obviously. They just want the money, which is just about the only thing they can agree on.

Meliodas and Ludociel are unwilling to step down, solely to spite the other. But obviously, they don’t wanna marry the other either, but they can’t exactly show that in public, the public is supposed to believe that they’re totally in love, or at least don’t want to kill each other. The only solution to their problem? Kill the other. But is has to seem like an accident, of course, and if the other dies, they can put on a whole show like “I will go through with the merge of our companies in their memory, OH, MY LOVE, WHY WERE YOU TAKEN FROM ME SO SOON“ cue the crocodile tears aaand scene!

It’s not gonna be easy. But Meliodas and Ludociel are absolutely willing to go through with it, because killing the other is still better than getting married to them.

The one issue is obviously that neither of them want to die. The other issue is that their friends and/or relatives also don’t want them to die.

So Elizabeth, despite being kicked out of her mothers company, is still friends with them. More or less. Mostly Meliodas’ friend, but she also doesn’t want Ludociel to die, so she tries to act as a sort of mediator between the two, which... does not go well.

There are two more people who don’t want the two to die though, and those are: their brothers, Mael for Ludociel, and Zeldris for Meliodas.

Now as you can see, I’m setting up Zeldris and Mael to eventually fall for each other, but before that, I think Mael would also lowkey have a crush on Meliodas for a while, which one could call his Estarossa emo phase. He got over his crush as he got older for the most part, but not quite, and when he actually meets Meliodas (and Zeldris) in person for the very first time, he kind of giddy and lowkey wishes that he was the one who could’ve married Meliodas. This sentiment quickly disappears though, when Meliodas doesn’t really notice him at all. Not because he hates Mael, he’s just caught up in his hatred for Ludociel. So Mael and Zeldris get to talking instead. It’s a bit of a rocky start, they’re rival companies after all, but they quickly realize that they have more in common than they thought.

I’d imagine that the place where they meet is like a formal dinner or something, likely in a private area just for them. The DK and SD leave early due to business or something else, if they show up at all, because they’ve always been terrible parents. It’s not just the demons and goddesses who show up though, it’s all relevant big shot companies, so humans, fairies and giants also attend, or representatives for them attend at least, so Elizabeth, representing an up and coming company called Liones, is also there.

I also haven’t specified what the companies make. I don’t know for the others, but I did sort of attempt to write a snow white au, and ever since then, I haven’t been able to get it out of my head that the demons company would produce clothes or something else fabric (FABRIC, NOT FASHION, necessarily) related.