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#simon lives through his death somehow because I say so and finds a kid with a copy of grace’s book years later and makes it mission
blingblong55 · 1 year
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Walking in the wind-141
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A/N: sorry but I'm a directioner at heart babes so the title was a must
GN!Reader, angst, some fluff, platonic!relationship, death of character
20 years later, 141 was officially retired, all married, happy families, peaceful sunny days and most importantly, no war, no guns, just peace.
A week ago you said to me "Do you believe I'll never be too far?" If you're lost, just look for me You'll find me in the region of the summer stars
Every month, no matter where either one of the people in the team was in the world, they would fly to a small home in town in the southern part of the U.S. And arrive between 6-7 in the afternoon, to talk and catch up because it's better to see the person than to text them. The stories shared between all, the wives/husbands, kids and how old they were getting. Unlike the rest, you moved to America, and wanted that movie-like life, in some small town, driving a truck, passing through quiet streets where all anyone worried about was the leaves that would fall in autumn. You and your partner opened a small pub.
The name for it was 'R/N's Place" This was after you finally get out of the toxic part of your life, the family and the ache it gave you when you were there. Not a normal name for a pub but the locals loved it. Your favourite part was that you received lots of veterans, they all told you about their time serving and you, like the proud friend you are displayed a picture of you and the team in your first and last mission together.
It was almost around the time the men arrived, Price being the first, followed by Gaz who flew in with him. Soap arrived late, his children wanted to talk to their father before bedtime and Ghost arrived last, getting a call from his partner to which he always answered, he always made it clear his partner was a priority now that he is retired. You waited by the table with the rest for Ghost, your wife/husband serving the clients. "And there he is, Simon." Price smiled a little, proud to see his family again. "Alright, who's first?" Gaz asked and drank from his pint.
"I'll go first," Ghost said, which was a definite first. "Go on, son." Price passed all a cigar. A tradition he started once his grown soldiers/children were all retired. "Me and my partner are expecting a son." A secret he kept until it was assured the baby would make it this time. "Congrats mate!" Soap hugged him, feeling proud of a man he considered his oldest brother. "That's very much well deserved, man." Gaz smiled and you stared in awe. Price looked down with a soft chuckle, wanting to dismiss the tears that formed in his eyes. His wallet would be getting a new picture of the newest addition to the family soon. --- "R/N, I won't make it, go!" Ghost said to which you shook your head. "No, this is the one command I will not take! You will get old and fat but you will NOT die on me lieutenant, not today!" you yelled over the loud noises. ---
He looks at you and you hug him, whispering in his ear, "See, I told you it would be possible this time, Simon. I'm so happy and proud of you." Words that definitely made the tears well up in his eyes.
The fact that we can sit right here and say goodbye Means we've already won A necessity for apologies between you and me Baby, there is none
"Now you are all making me feel old." Price jokes and finally looks up. The four people he fought with through wars, all living the lives he knew were all much earned. Through the wounds, blood and sacrifice, somehow, five mad people are still alive. And the entire night, Soap told stories of his farm, and Gaz gave advice on how to fix some stuff, a trip he would soon have to make to Scotland. Gaz on the new tricks his little ones make, how he knows karma got to him and his back aches, so much for the jokes he told about Price. Ghost with his wood-making business, one he started in the backyard and now in Manchester's best small business. Price on how his kids are now in uni and the youngest one is in secondary.
And then you, with their favourite pub in the entire world, how you adopted a child and your eldest in primary already. Your wife/husband watching you smile from afar. You always were excited for these meetings, it was the one time someone other than the local veterans understood the stories you told.
We had some good times, didn't we? We had some good tricks up our sleeve Goodbyes are bittersweet But it's not the end I'll see your face again
And, as each month passed by, it turned into 10 years later. You and the other men in the team gathered not in America but back home in England. All in black dressing, lifting the coffin of the father you all shared. Price had peacefully passed on a calm night. As his wife puts it, he was finally ready to go, his mission was over and the children he raised were all old enough to understand and his little soldiers as he called you were well off in life, the one he made sure you all had. In years you had never seen so many of the toughest and now retired soldiers you worked with cry so much. You did too. The ceremony was as expected, memorable, beautiful and for the last time in John Price's life, peaceful.
Yesterday I went out to celebrate the birthday of a friend But as we raised our glasses up to make a toast I realised you were missing
You all flew back to the first ever pub he took you to. Raise your glasses and shed more tears. You see, this was a promise you all made. An oath between Task Force 141. When one passes, those that remain must go to the first pub we talked to as not a team but a family, and just then we can mourn but also celebrate we once lived.
And I know we'll be alright, child Just close your eyes and see And I'll be by your side Any time you're needing me Oh, yeah
Ghost chuckles, "And he told me, 'you reckon I can make it?' and that old man did it, the deadliest move ever and he fuckin' made it." he takes a sip of his drink. Gaz smiles, fond memories shared between him and Price, to be remembered until his final breath. "He used to do this trick with the smoke from his cigar just for my little girl to giggle, and man does she still ask for that trick," Soap shared. All four of you, smoking a cigar, just like he would've. "Can you believe the old man never complained too much about his back?" you ask to which all others nod. Now in your late 40's to early 50's, you never understood how he never once complained of the aching bones or back, proving he was and will always be the strongest and toughest man to ever grace your lives.
And you will find me Yeah, you will find me In places that we've never been For reasons we don't understand
tags: @warenai @liyanahelena
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mooncactus · 2 years
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my new headcanon no one can take away from me: grace gets off the train with all of simon’s novels in hand. over the course of like a decade she edits and publishes them. she eventually continues the story herself.
at a signing for book five a thirty year old simon fresh off the train crashes in with a grubby copy of book 1 in hand shouts “YOU PLAGIARIZED ME????”
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supercasey · 4 years
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What Your TMA OTP Says About You
By a dumb asexual who makes too many sex jokes
Jon/Martin: You project onto/kin at least one of these two fools, but no matter what, you are yearning for a relationship like theirs. You're also probably a theatre kid, at least spiritually.
Elias/Peter: You like the dynamic of Jonmartin, but you think it would be 10x better if Martin bullied Jon back and if they were both GILFs. You also probably have "Big Boy Man" as your ringtone.
Tim/Sasha: You believe that both of these characters deserved better, and you probably love the Archivist Sasha AU more than life itself. Also, Tim gets pegged.
Basira/Daisy: You are a hotbed of drama, which is completely unintentional on your part and you rarely participate in it at will; you just want some quality wlw content, and you will not be stopped from getting it.
Melanie/Georgie: You are completely done with Jon's shit, but you still find him somewhat endearing in his panic induced stupidity. You are also a wlw and want to live in a small apartment with your gf and cats, but only if the apocalypse is happening in the background.
Michael/Gerry: You like Jonmartin, but you also want to crank that shit to 100 and blast MCR in the background while they kiss. You also might kin Nico from PJO, and you are most certainly a scene kid.
Jon/Gerry: You are all about that sadboi content, and I honestly can't tell which of these depressed motherfuckers you kin, but I know you kin at least one of them.
Jon/Martin/Gerry: Same as Jonmartin, but you're dead certain that Gerry would be an amazing addition/middle man for them and that he would've gotten them into a relationship together by the end of season 1.
Gertrude/Agnes: There is literally nothing more heartbreaking yet addictive to you than starcrossed lovers that can never be together because of circumstances outside of their control. You're also gay.
Leitner/Gertrude: You honestly just find it so funny that Jonny Sims' parents voice these characters so that's why you ship them. You either hated or loved when they roasted Jon at the end of S3, there is no in-between.
Jude/Agnes: You are a Jude Perry kinnie/you want to set the world on fire beside the woman of your dreams. Probably a top.
Jon/Tim: You lived for the sassy bits between Tim and Jon in seasons 1-2 and you would give anything for Tim to have kissed Jon to shut him up midway through a rant.
Mike/Simon: You're here to love Mike Crew and fuck some GILFs. Press F to pay respects to our short king.
Jon/Michael: I don't know what's going on with you after S3, but dear God do you wanna fuck monsters, specifically if they look like a Bill Cipher humanization that you can only perceive while doing acid.
Jon/Elias: You are an Eliasfucker and you wear that badge with pride.
Martin/Peter: You are an Eliasfucker and you hide this fact at all costs. Also you probably have a very complicated relationship with your father.
Jon/Basira: You thought Tim was spot on about these two being good together; they're bookworm buddies!
Jon/Georgie: You cannot get enough of absolute off his shits college!Jon and frankly, good for you. You also want Georgie to peg you.
Melanie/Basira: Just a couple of gals being pals, and nothing is sexier than performing life-saving, non-consensual surgery on your GF so she doesn't start killing people... according to you, apparently.
Jonah/Barnabas: You heard Jonah say that he held affection for a character mentioned exactly one time even though he left him to die, and you went fucking feral. Tbh you just wanna get with a Victorian dude.
Jonah/Mordecai: This is just Elias/Peter but with more Victorian outfits and letters that would be considered incredibly scandalous, even for the era. Also it makes Elias/Peter 100x more uncomfortable, but I guess some people are into that???
Jon/Martin/Tim: Why be just friends when you can all be in a gay polyam relationship together and kiss? In other words, every fight between Tim and Jon has gutted you like a fucking fish.
Jon/Martin/Tim/Sasha: Same as before, but you stan the first season of the series so hard that people outside the fandom think it's an office comedy.
Gertrude/Elias: Somehow you came to the conclusion that if Elias got pegged then none of the bullshit in the series would've happened.
Melanie/Helen: You're similar to the Jon/Michael shippers in that you wanna fuck monsters, but more like the kind of monsters that make your eyes bleed and your brain melt when you fully perceive them.
Jon/Helen: You either started shipping this as a joke or to cope with the death of Michael, there is no in-between.
Jon/Nikola: You heard Jon admit that he got daily, fully body lotion massages from Nikola and you lost your fucking mind. Clownfucker.
Breekon/Hope: Breekon's statement made you cry for a hundred thousand years, and you will never be over it. Fuck getting a bunch of divorces like Lonelyeyes, you wanna stay with your soulmate until the end of time!
Nikola/Jane Prentiss: You want more wlw content, but specifically you want them to be cartoonish supervillains who can't stop kissing each other in the middle of trying to murder Jon.
Alright, that's all the one's I'm doing. Please don't send me any hate, these are all just meant to be jokes!
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lesbianlotties · 3 years
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Journeys end in lovers meeting - Sam/Deena - Fear Street x Bly Manor AU - Chapter 2
Chapters: 2/10 Fandom: Fear Street Trilogy (TV) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Samantha "Sam" Fraser/Deena Johnson, Sarah Fier/Hannah Miller (Fear Street), Christine "Ziggy" Berman/Nick Goode, Samantha "Sam" Fraser & Deena Johnson Characters: Samantha "Sam" Fraser (Fear Street), Deena Johnson, Kate Schmidt (Fear Street), Simon Kalivoda, Josh Johnson (Fear Street), Constance (Fear Street Part 3: 1666), Christine "Ziggy" Berman, Nick Goode (Fear Street), Alice (Fear Street Part 2: 1978), Sarah Fier (Fear Street), Hannah Miller (Fear Street), Solomon Goode (Fear Street) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, The Haunting of Bly Manor AU, Not Canon Compliant, Haunted Houses, Ghosts, Character Death, Minor Character Death, Canon Lesbian Relationship, First Meetings, Fluff and Angst, Eventual Smut, Happy Ending, Au Pair Sam, Gardener Deena, Housekeeper Kate, Cook Simon, Josh and Constance as troubled kids, Ziggy and Nick in an unhealthy relationship, minor Cindy/Alice, Martin cameos, special appearances of all the Shadyside killers as ghosts, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, The Rest Is Confetti Summary:
The year is 1994. Samantha Fraser recently moved to Shadyside, and she desperately needs a job that will help her leave her troubled past behind. She starts working as au pair at Shadyside Manor, where she is not the only one tortured by ghosts. Grief, regrets, guilt, innocent victims, and an ancient curse. At the center of all of it... love.
Chapter 2:
Sam hadn’t been kidding when she said she would deal with the kids by herself. About nine years as a teacher were worth it. She knew exactly how to balance patience and authority, and exactly when to crack a smile. It wasn’t time for smiles though. It was time to let the kids of Shadyside manor know that their days of self-government were over. Sam was brought there to bring them an education, and that included rules, discipline, and consequences to their actions.
So, if they locked her in a closet, there would have to be a sort of punishment. If they were responsible for the muddy footprints that appeared on the staircase of the house, there would also be a punishment. Nothing too severe, of course. Sam knew even the word punishment seemed too hard for kids. But she knew this would be her only chance at asserting her position in that place.
That was how, after breakfast, Sam found herself with nothing to do while Josh and Constance worked on cleaning up the stairs. Luckily, she was quickly approached by two of her coworkers.
“So, since you have put the kids to do my work,” Kate said. “Why don’t you come hang us for a bit?”
Simon pulled out one of the chairs from the table and with a flourish offered it to Sam, “Miss Fraser, would you care to join us for a mid-morning shit-talking session?”
“Oh, sure,” Sam chuckled nervously and accepted the seat. “And you can just call me Sam.” She couldn’t help repeating herself. She didn’t exactly have good memories attached to her name. She only ever wished to be just Sam.
“Don’t creep her out, please,” Kate told her friend and two of them took a seat as well. “So, Sam, what do you think of the house so far? And the kids?”
The new au pair took her time to answer. “The house is… big. It’s uh, I mean, sure, it looks scary. But once inside, it doesn’t feel as bad as the rumors make it out to be, you know?”
Kate nodded firmly, seemingly satisfied with that answer. Simon grinned playfully and leaned forward on the table as if about to discuss a secret, “You don’t have haunted houses in Sunnyvale?”
Sam chuckled bitterly at that. Apparently, it wasn’t a secret for anyone the place she came from. If only they knew the full story. “No we don’t,” she looked down and shook her head. “Sunnyvale has its different types of hauntings though.”
“What about the kids?” Kate blurted out.
“The Sunnyvale kids?”
“What? No! Constance and Josh,” Kate scoffed, and sent an unimpressed look in Sam's way. 
“Oh, right,” Sam laughed nervously. She desperately hoped she wasn’t blushing in embarrassment. Kate was staring at her very intently, studying her. But it was, somehow, not getting exactly the effect she was hoping for in Sam. Because yes, maybe Sam was deeply intimidated. But she could also tell that Kate’s harshness came from a place of being protective of the kids and caring about them. “They seem great, really,” Sam eventually replied. “Constance is bold and Josh is an introvert, but I’ve dealt with kids like that my entire life. I’m going to try my best with them though, that’s for sure. I just… have to get to know them.”
At that moment, Kate and Simon exchanged a look. Sam had no doubt it was true that those two had been best friends for a long time. It seemed like a really important conversation was silently happening between them. Finally, Simon spoke up.
“No, you haven’t worked with kids like them,” he replied, suddenly very careful with his words. “No offense, you know? But, bold and introverted mean different things in Sunnyvale and Shadyside. Here they mean something more along the lines of survivor and traumatized.”
A not completely discreet cough from Kate got him to stop talking. “No, I know, I’m sorry,” Sam was quick to apologize. They weren’t completely wrong. “I know, it’s just, well… I don’t know anything… I mean, what, uh, why…” She ended with a sigh and slumping in her chair, knowing there was no right way to ask the questions she had in mind.
“Constance’s parents died two years ago,” Kate said. She was speaking almost in whispers, but it nearly startled Sam, who didn’t think she’d get any sort of explanation. Afterward, she would hope she hadn’t. “Cindy Berman and husband. Plane crashed. Then, last year… her aunt. Christine killed herself here on the property. Really gives you some perspective into all the fucking rumors, doesn’t it?”
Afterward, Sam was beyond speechless. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t find a thing to say. That’s when Simon joined in.
“And Josh, he… uh, well, he is not one of the Bermans,” Simon was struggling to explain. “Look, he has his own fucked up past, okay? But I can’t tell you more because Deena would totally kick my ass. It’s their story to tell, you know? The past is the past anyway.”
Sam nodded thoughtfully. At least, she hoped she appeared thoughtful. Not too thoughtful though. Just thoughtful enough for someone that has perfectly normal reactions to hearing the name of a very particular co-worker. That momentary panic at least gave her an idea of how to reply to the tough conversation. A change of subject.
“What about you guys?” Sam asked. “How did you end up working at the manor?”
Instantly, Kate seemed to relax. “I just like bossing people around,” she grinned, earning laughter from the other two. “My aunt used to work here. Alice pays well enough. And if you don’t get scared easily, it’s not a bad place to live in.”
Sam smiled at her and then looked at Simon, noticing how he didn’t look half as relaxed as Kate this time. “What can I say?” he smiled in a way that kept a lot hidden. “It pays the bills. It’s close to home. And I fucking love food.”
The au pair decided it wasn’t time to push for more information. Instead, in that brief moment of silence, she turned her head to look through the door at Josh and Constance working on the stairs. They were doing well, but their day was far from over. From her point of view, she had no way of seeing the man standing on the other side of the stairs. Tommy Slater had been standing there for longer than he could remember. He was still wearing his red flannel shirt, still holding on to his axe, still looking impossibly sad, cold, and lonely.
--
As she made her way to the greenhouse, Sam tried to convince herself she wasn’t nervous at all. She had no reason to be anxious at all. Deena Johnson was another one of her coworkers. Sure, maybe she pulled Sam out of a pretty embarrassing breakdown the previous night. Yes, maybe she had an incredible smile that almost painfully reminded Sam of feelings she had spent a lifetime running from. But… she reached the greenhouse before coming up with a reason not to be on edge.
“Hi?” she called out, tentatively stepping inside the place.
“Over here,” a voice replied from the back of the greenhouse. A voice that was like no other Sam had ever heard.
“Um, hi, Deena,” Sam approached her slowly. “It’s me, uh, Sam.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” Deena replied, a small smile on her lips. She stood up from the ground, where she had been kneeling down to work on one of the multiple plants that filled this space. “What do you have there?” Deena asked, nodding toward the plate Sam was holding in her hand.
Sam looked down, as if she had forgotten what it was she was carrying. “Simon,” she blurted out.
“Oh. He looks a little bit different than I remember.”
That made Sam laugh nervously. “I mean, it’s your breakfast,” Sam said. “You didn’t come down for breakfast and Simon asked me to bring it to you.”
Deena nodded slowly, and accepted the plate from Sam’s hands. Then she moved to one of the two chairs at the back of the greenhouse and sat down, inspecting her breakfast.
Afterward, Sam might chastise herself for it, but at the moment she couldn’t help but blurt out, “You’re welcome.”
That earned her an annoyed sigh from the gardener. “Listen, you don’t have to do this,” Deena said.
“Do what?” Sam wondered, taking a seat on the spare chair.
“Play nice with us, with me,” Deena explained, nearly whispering the last part.
“I…” Sam stuttered, she was definitely taken off guard. “Well, we are coworkers now, we live under the same roof, I think-”
“I think you have no idea what you got yourself into. This place, and everyone here, is doomed,” Deena interrupted her. “You’re Sunnyvale, we are Shadyside trash. I know your type. I only hope you’ll run away before the kids get attached to you.”
For a moment, all Sam could do was stare, frown silently at Deena, as the other woman nonchalantly got started on her breakfast, as if she hadn’t just put Sam’s entire mood upside down. It was interesting though, the way Deena chose not to mention the fact that she skipped breakfast just to avoid a set of blue eyes that were too dangerously pretty to wander into Shadyside.
Sam jumped out of her seat, and took a deep breath to reign in her feelings. “You don’t know me at all,” was all she said before walking out of the greenhouse.
--
The rest of the morning passed by in a blur of hard work, mostly for the kids. Surprisingly though, at one point they stopped looking so bothered about it. Josh wasn’t the kind to complain out loud, but Sam noticed from the way his shoulders relaxed and his lips almost started to smile. Constance, on the other hand, was pretty content complaining as much as possible, but she seemed happier doing something new, entertaining, and different from studying. They especially seemed to enjoy working outside.
Sam had wanted to avoid the unkind gardener as much as possible, but she had already planned this, so there was no turning back. This was part of the kids’ education, hard work, and Sam was proud of her methods. The one thing she wasn’t proud of was the way the gardener was making her feel. Her plan to avoid Deena had backfired. Deena, Kate, and Simon were lounging in the garden, while Sam guided Josh and Constance on their work.
As hard as she tried, Sam couldn’t stop herself from second-guessing what her new coworkers were talking about. Were they talking about her? Good things? Did Kate and Simon feel the same way as Deena? Were they criticizing her? Those smiles on their faces, was that a good or bad sign? Deena’s posture on that chair, the way she held a cigarette, played with the delicate chain hanging from her neck, teased her young brother, locked eyes with Sam precisely once… did it mean anything at all?
--
The rest of the morning went by easily. Sam dragged Josh and Constance back to the house to continue cleaning, and they had to comply. Tragic as it seemed, they couldn’t complain to anybody. Kate, Simon, Deena, even Alice in the safety of her own home, they all would have supported Sam’s teaching methods at best, would’ve laughed in their faces at worst. 
Things couldn’t be perfect though. Sam would scold herself for letting her guard down at all. She had been in one of the bedrooms, assisting Constance with cleaning the windows, when it happened. One second it was just a window, showing the green grounds around the property, nothing more. Then the next second, all Sam could see was his face. Dark. Just a shadow. Furious. Disgusted. Head tilted. Observing her. Unforgiving. Horribly familiar.
Sam let out a yelp of surprise and stumbled backward. She caught herself before falling down to the floor, but not before Constance saw her. At first, the girl chuckled, but she sounded somewhat genuine when she asked, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m- uh, I’m okay,” Sam replied, voice trembling. “Give me a minute.”
She was out of that room before hearing the girl’s reply. She couldn’t move fast enough, but her legs were trembling. She couldn’t shake that image of her mind. Her own particular ghost. The monster that she hadn’t been able to leave in Sunnyvale. Following her reflection everywhere she went.
Sam stumbled down the stairs and out of the house. She finally found refuge behind one of the big bushes on the sides of the entrance. A place where she could break down in peace. She couldn’t stop the tears, and she could hardly breathe, and she was so scared.
“Are you okay?”
The question makes Sam choke one of her sobs. Of all people that could have caught her at this moment…
“I get it,” Deena cautiously added, from a safe distance away. “I swear I had the same reaction after I met Constance.” She could barely see Sam, hiding behind the bush, but she guessed that privacy was exactly what the blonde wanted. “If Josh’s the problem though, just let me know. You aren’t allowed to, but I can totally kick his ass.” That earned her a tearful chuckle from Sam, which was a very good sign. “Just so you know though,” Deena added, “That’s usually my spot for having an emotional breakdown. Now I have to go to this other corner and there are spiders and shit in there, no privacy at all.”
This time, there was a genuine laugh coming from Sam. The tears had stopped, and she managed to find the strength to look over her shoulder, show her face to Deena and say, “Thank you.”
Deena softly shook her head, dismissing Sam’s need to thank her. “You’re doing better than most people could,” she said. Seeing Sam smile sadly, acknowledging her tear-streaked face, Deena insisted, “I mean it.”
There was a pause then. Sam opened her mouth, desperately wishing she could say something else. All she wanted was to ask Deena how she could be so kind and so cruel as if a switch was flipped inside her. But Sam feared that saying more than two words would make her cry again. Deena took that as her cue to go on with her day.
“Back to work then,” Deena said, starting to march back into the house. “Stay strong, Sunnyvale.”
Definitely done with her tears, Sam was having trouble holding back her smile. She tried to sneak another glance at the gardener, but Deena was gone, leaving behind only a pleasant warmth in Sam’s heart and a firm smile on her face.
--
Nine years of teaching had taught Sam a lot. She knew how to handle kids, that was for sure. The unruly ones, the proud ones, the ones that struggled, and the ones that shined brightly. Simon had been right when he said she had never worked with kids like Josh and Constance. Still, she was prepared to deal with Josh picking up spiders from the garden, and trying to scare her. She didn’t lose her ground even when Constance’s attitude sometimes made Sam feel like she was the teenager out of the two of them.
What she did that day wasn’t the worst Sam had to do for one of her students. Still, it was pretty awkward explaining to Deena how her younger brother had massacred the rose bushes to give the flowers to Sam.
When the two women arrived at the scene of the crime, it was a huge mess. Josh had picked a few roses for Sam and destroyed the rest. He must have been pretty aggressive to earn that small limp he had when he walked toward Sam a few minutes earlier.
The teenager fell to second place in the forefront of Sam’s mind though. She was slightly more preoccupied about the furious gardener gripping the broken stem of a rose as if it were a knife.
“I’m going to fucking kill him,” Deena yelled, not for the first time in the past minute, and tried to walk away.
“Hey,” Sam stopped her with a firm tone and a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll deal with him, it’s my job.”
Deena took a deep breath. She was pretty much shaking with anger still. She pursed her lips, suddenly aware of the way she had been yelling at the innocent au pair for god knows how long now. She wasn’t good at apologizing though. She slumped her shoulders and exhaled.
“It’s just… he should know better than this,” Deena said bitterly. “We are lucky to be living here. He knows he has to stay out of trouble.” She looked up into Sam’s blue eyes and the careful attention she found there nearly turned her breathless. “That was the deal,” Deena added softly, taking a moment to gulp nervously. “I made a deal with Cindy Berman years ago, when we had nothing. Josh and I could live here, and I’d pay her by working on the grounds of the manor.”
Sam nodded slowly, with a barely-there smile that let Deena know she had listened, and understood. “It’s okay,” Sam said. “I don’t think it’ll be a big deal. I won’t say anything if you don’t.” The two women exchanged a smile. “It’s just a few flowers-”
“It’s not just a few flowers,” Deena protested immediately.
“I know, I know,” Sam quickly said. She was tiptoeing the line between fearing Deena’s temper and being endeared by how protective she was of her plants. “They’re also a weapon, apparently.”
Deena tilted her head in confusion. “Ah,” she said when she looked down at the rose’s stem she was still holding in her hand. She couldn’t say anything else though. Sam had taken the initiative to reach out and gently pry open Deena’s fist to take the stem away. That’s when they both noticed there had been thorns involved. “Shit,” Deena cursed.
“Um,” Sam mumbled pensively as she stared at the couple of red spots on Deena’s hand. “You know, to be a teacher, you have to learn a thing or two about first aid. Do you want help?”
Deena was already shaking her head. Her wild curls shook with her movement. “No, it’s okay- fuck!” She exclaimed in pain the moment she tried to close her hand again. Now there were a few drops of blood on her palm. “Fine,” she grumbled. 
--
Deena was so upset about having someone bandaging her hand, that Sam found the whole process much easier than she had expected. It was a little bit like dealing with a kid, not that she would ever admit such a thing to the gardener. 
“So, you really like those roses, huh?” Sam asked while cleaning up the little wounds in Deena’s palm.
“They’re some of my favorites from the entire property,” Deena shrugged. “I like all these plants more than most people, that’s for sure.”
Sam nodded, picking up the bandages. “Why would he do this?” she asked. “Josh, I mean. He doesn’t seem to be the type to vandalize the gardens.”
“He isn’t. There was one bad fucking influence and…” Deena replied. Her words were hiding a lot, but her resentful tone warned the au pair against making any further questions. Instead, Deena looked up and added, “or maybe… he just really likes you, Sunnyvale.”
Sam laughed at that, and ducked her head to avoid those gorgeous brown eyes. Surprisingly, she decided to admit something right then and there in the otherwise empty kitchen of the manor while holding on to Deena’s hand. “You do know I’m not even from Sunnyvale, right?” 
“What?” Deena asked. She looked caught off guard for the first time since Sam met her.
“You guys don’t fact-check your gossip, huh?” Sam chuckled. “I was born here, in Shadyside. I moved away when I was little, after my father died, but… I guess, now I’m trying to find my home, you know?”
“Right,” Deena replied.
She blinked slowly, and her eyebrows furrowed into a small frown as she took in the information, the significance of Sam sharing it with her, and the unknown reason why the word home sounded so perfect coming from Sam’s smiling lips.
After a brief silence that felt like it stretched for hours, Deena cleared her throat. “Well, uh, thank you, for giving me a hand,” she said. The mention of her hand made both women realize that this entire time they hadn’t let go of each other’s hands. They pulled away from each other quickly, but nothing could have wiped the smiles off their faces. “It’s not the worst I’ve dealt with so I better get back to work. I guess I’ll see you around… Sunnyvale.”
Sam didn’t even attempt to hold back her grin. Distantly, she wished she wasn’t blushing too much, but that was it. She turned around to watch Deena walk away from the kitchen. Then she was rewarded with the sight of Deena looking back at her once before crossing the doorway.
When she was alone again, Sam leaned her back against the counter and sighed. It was a mixture of contentment and exhaustion. She had tried her best to maintain a good impression in front of Deena, and now she could finally relax. She was starting to understand her better too, how Deena’s boldness came from a good place of being protective over her brother, and maybe even over the whole property. Sam’s exhaustion though, didn’t come from anywhere near Deena, the teens, or the house. She was only realizing how absurdly debilitating it had been to keep up a false version of herself at all times during those years in Sunnyvale. Slowly but surely, she was leaving all that behind.
Sam took a deep breath and straightened up. Then she started to walk out of the kitchen following the path Deena had walked a minute ago. She didn’t have to look back before crossing the doorway, she just kept walking. This way, she missed Ryan Torres’s presence in one corner of the kitchen. Lonesome, unknown, fumbling with the knife he still carried at all times.
--
“Josh! Constance! You guys are way too old for this kind of game!” Sam was yelling as she walked around the house. She didn’t understand how Kate hadn’t heard her yet.
She wasn’t scared. Just because they had turned off all the lights and she was only barely familiar with the house didn’t mean she should be scared. The kids wanted to improvise a game of hide and seek to avoid going to bed? Fine. Sam wasn’t scared of the dark. In the darkness she couldn’t see her reflection and whatever cursed company she would find there. If she had to drag a couple of teenagers to their beds from their ears then so be it. 
When Sam caught sight of the curtains of one room moving strangely, she hurried towards it and pulled at it, but there was nobody there. She sighed, disappointed, stressed, but not scared, not yet. She heard footsteps behind her, and when she turned around, she distinctly heard the front door of the house open. Chills ran through Sam’s spine. It was unsettling, but not too bad, right? She would be deeply upset if she had to chase a pair of teenagers out in the middle of a storm, but it could be worse.
It could be worse… Maybe it was much worse than she imagined. That was the thought going through Sam’s mind when, very slowly, she turned back around to face the window again. At first, it looked like a blur. Then, she feared it was that same ghostly silhouette that followed her everywhere. Somehow, it was worse. Somehow, the figure moved closer and it became clear. There was a man standing on the other side of the window. Tall. Dark hair. Hazel eyes. Smile that never, under any circumstances, would have been mistaken for friendly.
Sam took a step backward, so did he. Then she took off running. Not in the direction some might have expected. She wasn’t running away to hide. She ran out of that room, taking the fireplace poker from its stand and gripping it with force as she rushed out of the house.
“I’m going to call the police!” Sam yelled while the rain poured down on her. “I’m going to call the fucking police!”
She ran toward the window where she’d seen that man. He was nowhere to be seen but, as if it was all part of a pattern, she stumbled across the worst possible scenario.
“Sam?” Josh mumbled. He was just standing there, shaking with cold, drenched from the rain… then he just crumbled down, falling to the ground, unconscious.
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izzielizzie · 3 years
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do you ever think about how SAD maeve's life must have been for seven plus years?
okay i have so many feelings about maeve fucking rojas and i will rant about it now because you asked
like in the us kids start going to school at age six? she was just starting to learn how to read and what numbers are she was learning how to share and how to make friends. and she was going to disney with her sister and they lost their teeth at the same time and her mother must adored her so much and she must have lived for that magical moment every day when her father walked through the door and got on the floor to give her a giant hug and it's all chaos because her mom wants a kiss but bronwyn wants to tell her dad about the new book from the library but maeve wants to show her dad the cut she got from climbing a new tree. and even though her mother kissed her better many times he pulls a chocolate bar out of the back of her ear and she's laughing and tugging open the wrapper while bronwyn tells her to hurry up because she wants candy too and her mom's annoyed that they're eating dessert before dinner but everyone's laughing so she doesn't really care. and then at night after she's all snuggled up in her bed her parents come in and read her a book and kiss her goodnight and she sneaks out of her bed to go sleep with bronwyn because she can and their parents find them there with their stuffed bears and when they wake up it happens all over again, every day better than the last because the whole world is new and bright and beautiful and
then it stops
and she's in so much pain and she's screaming but she doesn't know what it is because she seven for heaven's sake she's a baby and her mother won't stop crying now and she knows it's her fault but she's hurting too and she can't fix this. and bronwyn won't laugh anymore and her dad keeps saying that awful prayer - yo para ella - and she knows this is all her fault and if she could just go home everything would be better. and her mom stays with her but at some point she has to go to work too, and there are so many doctors she can't even remember their names and it's too much because she's seven and she doesn't know how to spell her name and she doesn't know what cells even are but they're growing too much and it's scaring everyone. and all the needles hurt and her grandparents are here now too but they keep looking like they're going to cry but it's tuesday which means that her favorite cartoon is on but the hospital tv doesn't have the right channel and she can cry but then some people will come with toys and books but they aren't the right people. and they aren't the right toys and there are no trees to climb and she couldn't even if she wanted to because it hurts too much
and she's still seven
and soon years pass. her mother stops crying. her father stops saying that prayer. but their eyes are hollow and sad and they don't smile that much any more. and bronwyn stops eating half of maeve's chocolate because it might be the last chocolate bar maeve eats. even if no one says it out loud. and soon bronwyn can't stand the sight of any type of candy because it reminds her too much of her sister. and then one day when maeve's a teenager - scrawny and hurting still - but older and wiser and broken, it all stops. and now everyone's happy and she's home but it's all wrong.
the couch is smaller than she remembers. the playroom is gone, replaced with an office. bronwyn's room is white now, not pink. she's too tall for the mirror in her room. the trees don't hold her weight. the basement has a media room and she knew about it but she can't bring herself to like it. but she wasn't there when they made the decision to finish the basement. her room is bare because no one has lived in it. she doesn't know how to fill it, so it ends up being a copy of bronwyn's. she only likes the window seat, since it's all her own.
and then she goes back to school for the first time since first grade and she vaguely recognizes some people, and she's so nervous and bronwyn leaves her for her friends the moment they walk through the door. and nothing makes sense and she's lost and instead of being helpful her classmates make the awful comments about her cancer. and she spends all of second period crying in the bathroom but she never tells bronwyn because this is hard enough on her sister no need to make it worse.
and eventually school makes sense. people are assholes but she has her sister and the handful of people who smile at her in the hall or pass her a note asking if she wants to hang out. but she's so damn tired. eventually she agrees to go to a party. the only party of her life because how often does she get to go to a party? but simon kelleher is there. and he's so desperate to be popular and liked that he has to take a moment from the life a girl who's only known terrible moments and put it on full blast.
and maeve's lost any progress she's made. and in the back of her mind, she's convinced herself that she won't live long enough anyway. so why does it matter? bronwyn will be hurt either way, so she sticks to bronwyn. and that works for a year. and hopefully for another three. but then simon happens. again.
now, it's bronwyn's turn to have the messed up life. and maeve is still hurting and broken and fucking exhausted but this is her sister. so she helps. she reads through so many 4chan sights glorifying something she's afraid of: painful death. but she keeps reading because this is for bronwyn.
and then it works. but now the whole world knows her as the sick sister who sent bronwyn spiraling. and it does nothing but prove to maeve that she's nothing but a nuisance.
she gets a boyfriend but it doesn't work out and somehow she convinces herself that she's just... unlovable. so when luis santos comes around she just won't accept the fact that she's worth the love she deserves.
so she dances around him as she solves a mystery that just hurts more and more people but she can't stop. until the most important person is hurt: nate. her brother.
and that's where it ends. we don't know anything else, and we won't for two years.
but we know enough don't we? enough to know that maeve has spent ten years hurting. and it doesn't take a year to fix it. it doesn't take luis santos and his smile. it doesn't take fierce phoebe lawton or kind knox myers. heck, her sister couldn't fix her.
maeve rojas is a girl who's known constant pain but never ever lets anyone else hurt. and maybe that's the saddest thing about her.
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kar-krashew · 3 years
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@arsenic-creator THIS IS THE CHEESIEST THING I'VE EVER WRITTEN BUT HERE'S YOUR CARS AU MALEC FIC.
(Rated T for language).
----
There are a lot of things that Alec misses about life outside this shitty little town, even though he’s only been here for a few days: his family, his friends, his cell phone— he could go on for a while. Hell, he even misses Aldertree’s incessant bragging at this point, which is a little concerning, because the man is a menace and just generally unpleasant to be around. The fact that Alec has not had a very public fistfight with him yet is a goddamn miracle.
But— he’s getting distracted. The point is, there are a lot of things on that list.
So, it’s genuinely impressive when Simon shows up and rambles for long enough that all Alec really misses now is some peace and quiet, because Simon does not know when to shut up, oh my god—
“What happens if you get pulled over on the road and you don’t have your license on you? Do the cops just let you go? I mean, you are a world famous racer, so it would be assumed that you know how to drive, right?” he pesters, “Or do you still get in trouble?”
Alec groans. He’s been dealing with this for the better part of an hour now, and throwing himself into a nearby cactus plant has never seemed more appealing. Simon, ruiner of lives and seemingly oblivious to Alec’s current temperament, barrels on steadily in his rant about cops and racers until they approach the main part of the plaza, where he suddenly pauses and grins.
Dread claws its way up Alec’s shoulders. Simon grinning like that can only bring bad things.
“So,” the kid drawls, “Where are you staying tonight? Anywhere special? In the spare bedroom of a local attorney, by the name of Magnus Bane, perhaps?”
Scratch that: Alec’s going to throw Simon into a nearby cactus plant, and he won’t even feel a little bit guilty. He could make it look like an accident and everything.
“Fuck off, Simon,” he scowls. He tries increasing his pace to ditch the kid, but Simon is nothing if not persistent. “Don’t you have anything else to be doing right now?”
“Nope.” Simon pops the word in his mouth, grin growing even wider. “You like him. Like, like-like him!” he declares, leaning in closer. “If it helps, I think he likes you, too.”
“Are we fifth graders now? Is that what’s happening?” Alec pointedly ignores the blush threatening to take over his face, and glowers down at the brunette. “Besides, he’s just being nice. It doesn’t have to mean something.” He’d meant to sound firm and sure when he said it, but his voice tapers off and gets soft instead, and now Alec is considering committing multiple misdemeanors if it means he’ll get out of this conversation. Simon shoots him a knowing look.
“But you want it to mean something,” he observes. Alec rolls his eyes, not bothering to grace the statement with a response. Simon takes it as an open invitation to start singing a very loud and terrible rendition of a song about Alec and Magnus sitting in a tree, and it’s enough for Alec to give in and violently shove the other.
Unfortunately, Simon does not hit any of the cacti nearby.
God, Alec hates this town.
---
The thing about Magnus Bane is that, well—
The man is fucking beautiful. Like, holy-shit-Alec-can't-breathe-around-him beautiful, with golden skin and kohl-lined eyes and dark hair and a jawline that Alec would love to get up close and personal with.
The first time they’d met, Alec made a complete ass out of himself by stumbling all over his words in court and then had gotten himself stuck doing community service, largely because of Magnus, for the god-forsaken town he’d managed to land himself in.
(Look, it’s not his fault that he somehow managed to destroy the town’s main road after veering wildly off course and out of control on his way to Brooklyn, okay? These things happen.)
It had kind of been all downhill from there.
But now, somehow, he’s lying in Magnus’s spare bedroom and watching the sunlight as it touches everything in the room with its golden glow, illuminating the walls, the potted plants, the shelves, the man leaning against the doorway—
“Holy shit!”
Alec scrambles to sit up in bed, frantically pulling up the sheets to his bare chest, as Magnus laughs. “Magnus!” Alec squeaks. “I, um, what’re you doing here?”
Magnus grins, rounding the corner of the bed to place a tray in front of Alec. “I thought I’d bring you breakfast,” he says, “before I asked you if you wanted to go for a drive.”
Alec frowns. “A drive?”
“A drive,” Magnus repeats, shrugging a shoulder. “I wanted to show you something, and took the liberty of filling your car up with gas again.”
“Wha— Why? You don’t think I’ll try leaving town again?” The only reason Alec hadn’t been able to leave when he first tried had been the lack of fuel in his tank, so he’s genuinely confused as to why Magnus decided to change that.
“I don’t know, will you?” the other asks. He tilts his head, looking gentle and blurred in his robe and smiling softly, something warm cradled in his eyes, and Alec knows with sudden certainty that he won’t. He might’ve said yes a few days ago, but now?
“No,” he replies. “I won’t.”
“That’s that, then,” Magnus beams, and Alec can’t help beaming back a little stupidly. “I trust you. Now, finish up, Alexander. We’ve got daylight to catch.”
---
“Where do you want me to go?”
They’re both sitting in Alec’s car, windows rolled down, on an old road leading away from the interstate. It’s beautiful out here— green trees circling a little lake tucked in between the rocks and dirt— but Alec has a feeling it’s not what Magnus wanted to show him.
“Just follow the path,” Magnus instructs, unbuckling his seatbelt. He turns to Alec and winks, before hoisting himself so that he’s sitting halfway out of the window, laughing at Alec’s surprised yelp and swerve of the car. “Careful there, hotshot!” he giggles, then leans further out like he’s got a fucking death wish, closing his eyes against the wind.
“Are you insane?” Alec yells out, and Magnus laughs harder.
“All the best people are, darling!” he responds. “I’ll be just peachy. Just keep going, we’re about to get to my favorite part!”
Alec’s about to yell out again, probably something like you have a favorite part of almost dying? or I think I’m halfway in love with you as they pass through a rocky tunnel, but before he can say either, his breath catches at the sight in front of him.
A huge, sparkling waterfall cascades down from the mountains, overlooking the rocky canyon and trees below it, framing the bridge that hangs in between. It almost doesn’t look real, more like something out of a corny road trip movie or a documentary, and Alec slows down as they approach it, taking it in. Magnus grins as they pass by, leaning out to catch errant drops of water on his fingertips, and God, it’s such a cliché and cheesy thing to do, and Alec wants to kiss him straight on his stupid mouth.
“I bet you don’t see that out in the city,” Magnus says smugly, tucking himself back into the car. He glances back at Alec with a smirk on his lips, running a hand through his wind-mussed hair. “Isn’t it gorgeous?”
“Yeah,” Alec breathes, staring at Magnus’s flushed cheeks and bright eyes. “It really is.”
(Fuck, now he’s the one being cliché. Izzy’s going to find out about this somehow and laugh at him forever.)
“Right.” Magnus clears his throat, looking away, jarring Alec back to reality. “We’re almost there, just pull up at the sign there,” he continues, pointing to a clearing ahead.
Alec coughs, nodding. “Right. Yes. The sign.”
The sign in question is a small landmark that points to a dilapidated, out-of-place building hidden between the rock of the mountain. “The Hotel Dumont,” the front reads, paint chipped away at the edges of the letters. The building looks Victorian in design, with intricate arches decorating the front, though many of them are cracked and gray now, and there’s a large open courtyard area in the front that appears abandoned now. It must’ve been beautiful, once. Now, it carries only echoes of a world passed.
“What is this place?” Alec asks. Magnus shakes his head and exits the car, then stands and stares at the sign for a while when Alec joins him.
“This used to be their livelihood,” he finally says, “The Hotel Dumont. Raphael used to run it, and everyone else would pitch in. You wouldn’t believe what it looked like earlier: parties in the main hall, music playing in the foyer, people laughing. It kept them going.”
“What happened?”
Magnus smiles wistfully. “A famous racer by the name of Valentine dropped a particularly scathing review of the hotel after Raphael caught him harassing customers and kicked him out. Had enough influence and lawyers to destroy all of this place’s credibility. These days, everyone’s barely getting by. It’s why they took so long to warm up to you; you essentially represent everything that ruined them.”
That’s horrible, Alec wants to say, but instead he looks over at Magnus and notes his glittering makeup and golden rings and silk tunic and blurts out, “Then how did you end up here?” and immediately winces.
It’s a valid question, technically— Magnus obviously wasn’t one of the town’s original residents, if his extravagant nature and the way he discusses the hotel are any indication— but still. Alec could’ve been gentler about it.
“I was an attorney in L.A, actually,” Magnus sighs. “It was good, I suppose, and money was never an issue, but I don’t think I was happy.” He shuffles closer to Alec as they idle in front of the building, brushing their shoulders together. “Got myself horribly drunk one night and made a whole plan to run away and leave the city behind. I woke up the next day, saw the plans, decided I might as well, and just started driving until my car finally broke down here.”
They’re silent for a moment, and Alec reaches out to touch his fingertips to Magnus’s comfortingly. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, “I can’t imagine what that must’ve felt like.”
Magnus turns to face him completely then, looking up at him knowingly. “Can’t you?” he asks. He takes Alec’s palms in his own and holds their hands between them. “Are you happy out there, Alexander?”
Alec blinks, startled. “Of course I am,” he protests automatically, because why wouldn’t he be? He’s rich, he’s famous, he’s doing what he loves; it’s all perfect. And yet—
He thinks about the constant pressure from his family and fans to be perfect and flashy and smiling all the time. He thinks back to his mother’s desperate attempts to hide his sexuality from the media, setting him up for meeting after meeting with beautiful women. He thinks about the façade he’s made for himself against the person he is right now, standing here with Magnus, and realizes that they’ve never been the same.
“I don’t know,” he finally admits. “I— I’m not sure.”
Magnus hums. He looks back at the hotel, Alec’s hands still clutched in his own. “You don’t have to leave, you know. You could stay here,” he says.
Alec surveys the landscape, then the man in front of him. “Yeah,” he agrees, “I think I could.”
---
He never gets to find out, because the next day it all goes to hell: Maryse Lightwood descends on the town, armed with a fleet of reporters and a truck waiting to take Alec away.
“We’re going now, Alec,” she demands. “Say goodbye to your ‘friends’ if you need to, and then we’re leaving.” She glances warily over at Magnus, who’s holding Alec’s hand, and frowns before she turns on her heel and walks away.
“So,” Magnus says flatly, “It appears you’re finally getting to that race.”
Alec wants to scream. He hates this, hates that this is how it’s going to end, before it’s even truly begun. If he just had more time—
“Magnus, I wanted to—” he starts, “I wish we—��� He exhales, running a hand through his hair exasperatedly, and Magnus smiles.
“It’s alright, Alexander. Just stay in touch, okay?” He pats Alec’s shoulder. “Go on, darling. I don’t think your mother would appreciate me keeping you any longer than I already have.”
Alec hesitates a moment more, wanting to do something, anything, to make this different, but then he swallows and steps away.
“Okay,” he murmurs. “I’ll, I’ll call you.”
(It won’t change anything: his life will be exactly the same as it was before. Just one phone call added onto the routine. They both know this is goodbye to whatever they could be.)
Still, Magnus squeezes his fingers and keeps smiling. “I’ll be waiting, Alexander,” he says.
“Sure,” Alec replies uselessly.
So he’s here now, weeks later, sitting on the stands and supposedly getting ready for a race that he doesn’t have heart in anymore.
Honestly, fuck this race. They all go the same way: he’ll race, he’ll win or lose, he’ll pose with some model for a newspaper, and that’ll be it. It used to be enough for him, once.
“Alec?” a voice interrupts, “You okay?”
It’s Izzy, crackling through the comms piece in his ear. Alec clears his throat. “Yeah,” he replies, hoping his voice doesn’t sound as brittle over the mic as it feels, “I’m fine.”
He’ll swallow his emotions and make it enough, again.
“Alright,” Izzy concedes, but she sounds disbelieving, “If you say so. It’s almost time, you might want to head to the car soon, okay?”
Alec hums in the affirmative, heading down to the track, paparazzi trying their best to bombard him. He takes a deep breath, avoiding the cameras, and opens the driver's side door of the car.
He’ll call Magnus after this. It’ll be enough.
Alec ducks under the roof of the vehicle. “Hey, Izzy?” he calls, seating himself behind the wheel. “If I win, remind me to call Magnus, okay?”
“I’m afraid that would be a little redundant, darling,” a new voice replies, and Alec’s heart skips a beat. “Given that you’ll be talking to me already.”
Magnus.
“Magnus?” Alec fucking leaps out of his car, searching frantically around the pit for the man in his ear. A warm laugh floods the comms, and Alec feverishly pushes past cameramen and well-meaning assistants (who are trying to remind him that he really should be in his car right now) in his desperation, only to turn around and:
It’s him. It’s really him, smiling warmly at Alec with his gorgeous brown eyes, wearing black eyeliner to match the Lightwood tracksuit he’s wearing, and Alec missed him so much, oh god, he’s really here—
“Magnus,” he breathes, then he’s throwing his helmet down and closing the distance between them and pulling at Magnus’s lapels, up, up, up, and straight to his own mouth.
He’s kissing him.
Magnus is gripping onto his face too tightly and Alec is clacking their teeth together too harshly, but it’s Magnus, and it’s perfect, and Alec is kissing him, and he could lose every race from this moment on and still feel like he’s on top of the world if it means he’ll get to have this.
“You came,” he whispers when they finally pull apart. Magnus cups his face, stealing another kiss, before he responds.
“Of course I did. Honestly, I’m offended you didn’t ask for me to show up here, yourself,” he teases, and Alec grins bashfully.
“I didn’t think you’d want to,” he replies. Magnus rolls his eyes before pressing their foreheads together.
“Well, darling, we better change that soon, hm?” He twirls his fingers at the nape of Alec’s neck, and time feels like it's perfect and frozen forever in this moment, until Magnus clears his throat.
“I hate to interrupt this, Alexander, but there’s a race and a very excited group of reporters waiting for you, and you should probably get back to both. Unless, of course, you’re not planning to participate?”
Alec snorts and pulls away, loosening his grip around Magnus’s waist. “I plan on participating, Magnus,” he says. “I have a very special someone I’d like to dedicate the trophy to, if they’re open to the idea.”
Magnus grins. “Mmm, you’d have to win, first, wouldn’t you?” he winks, and Alec smirks back.
“For you?” he replies. “I’d do nothing less.”
Alec knows that he’s going to have an absolute media shitstorm waiting for him after he ends this race. But, looking back at a beaming Magnus as he picks his helmet up, he thinks it just might be worth it.
God, Alec loves that town. He's not sure why he ever thought otherwise.
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thecrimsonjaguar · 4 years
Text
A Short List of Adventure Time AUs
So I got a google doc of adventure time aus I’ve made over the past two or three years. Here are some of my favorites (and also the ones I came back to and edited)
If you’ve got ideas for an au or ideas to add onto the preexisting ones I’ve got here, please tell me! I’m always up for some au discussion. 
1.) Jermaine AU: Jermaine comes to live at the treehouse after his house blows up. This, unlike canon, happens rather early in season 3. The rest of the series mainly stays the same, except this time there's three brothers instead of two. He's a kinda anxious dude with demon hunting expertise and a painting hobby. He sometimes wonders if he made Dad disappointed by letting all his work explode. Finn and Jake help him out, and he helps them. Despite this, Jermaine is the only one with a brain, and Finn and Jake share exactly one (1) braincell that they trade every so often. Jermaine is tired. (Jermaine is the only one who tries to clean regularly, and he's also the one to keep Neptr, Ancient Psychic Tandem War Elephant, and a few others company. He's a bit of real wisdom the early series Finn and Jake needed.
2.) Melted Ice AU: Mid season two, IK is hit with something that de-ages him. He turns six. Maybe this mystery de-aging thing blows up the top of the ice mountain, who knows. Maybe he wakes up in the snow, with no memory of how he got there or why. No memory of the last one thousand years. Finn and Jake don't know about his backstory since that happens in season three. Simon is carried by a snowman out of the ice kingdom where he breaks down in the plains. Finn, of course, finds him and is ecstatic to meet another human. Completely missing the fact that this small child is, in fact, the Ice King, Finn declares to help this boy no matter what. That promise soon becomes difficult when people hear about the second human in Ooo, and whatever effect that's keeping him young starts to wear off. (Marceline comes to visit and has a heart attack)
3.) Adventure Falls AU: AT x GF baybee!! Seventeen year old Stanley Pines hops on the Stan O' War and sets sail when he's kicked out. Unfortunately, that boat is nowhere near sea worthy, and all it takes for him to go overboard is one sudden (magical) storm. But, miraculously, Stan doesn't die. He washes up on Ooo, the island of misfits. Where there's daddy issues galore and punching things and getting gold is a legitimate career. He's found on the shore by none other than Finn, who asks if he's okay and if a dungeon adventure would soothe his worries. Stan accepts, because that sounds awesome, and they maybe date. For the next ten years, Stanley is a professional hero. He travels with Finn, he lives in a tower with tons of gold, he's respected, adored, and has made a family for himself. Ooo has a habit of forcing traumatic therapy onto to people, so Stan gets (read: is forced) to work his issues out. And then, somehow, he gets a postcard from his brother.
4.) Young Pups AU: Jake's kids grow up fast- but not that fast. He stays with lady for a few episodes being Dad and when the Pups are old enough, go visit Finn and Jermaine. Also Jermaine is there when the pups are born that always bothered me in canon like what the fuck. This whole AU results in Jake the Dad being a better father than in canon, because he actually has time to make mistakes and learn from them. He sometimes shapeshifts into one of those baby carriers but suited for five kids instead of one. Finn and Jermaine fight for best uncle privileges. Finn is considerably more awesome but Jermaine's got magic junk and juicy stories about Jake. So far the votes are: FINN: Jake Jr, T.V.  JERMAINE: Kim Kil Whan, Charlie. Viola remains undecided.
4.) Evilgreen AU: Evergreen was evil. His idea to make the crown to stop the comet was actually a cover story to take control of all the elements and freeze everything. Of course the same thing happens here as it did in canon, Gunther gets the crown and wishes to *be* evergreen. This is bad. Very bad, so bad in fact, that things get FUnKy. A couple eons later, Simon gets the crown as per canon, and then things start to slide downhill. Since the crown is significantly worse, Simon tries to get rid of it. No amount of magic pull is going to get him to put on the eldritch hat. It teleports back. When things go to shit, the crown tells him he's got two options: He can either live, or he can live unwillingly. This all coalesces in super angst and mild horror as Simon has to fight off evil urges and somehow keep both he and Marceline safe. Things start looking up, though, when he summons Hunson Abadeer.
5.) Nightmare Therapy AU: Simon, now himself post canon, has some funky nightmares. Problem is: he's due for a visit from the cosmic owl due to some mystical bureaucratic bs. If that were to happen, Simon's dreams of Golb and Orgalorg and the world ending and everyone dying and maze would come true, without the veil of metaphoric junk dreams are known for (also due to bureaucratic bs). So, Simon gets a dream therapist. An OC, probably, that would fight off his nightmares when they came and talk to him about his issues.
6.) High School AU: Except they're all still magic and crap. Finn's a jock that's part of the LDnD club(Literally Dungeons and Dragons), Jake's got a job at a pancake place and hosts the Card Wars clubs on Wednesdays, Jermaine's in college and their parents were still detectives/demon hunters. PB is preppy/nerdy girl with weird fucking family and is absolutely a mad scientist. Marceline is still a demon/vamp (vampire biker gang, they all died, deaths pending) and her uncle is Simon. Simon is a history teacher whose ex wife might be an eldritch abomination (the students wonder, but there are no answers)((simon says cryptic things every so often that are the subject of much ridicule, but he's a nice guy)). Ooo High has all of the AT characters in some shape or form. Tree trunks is the lunchlady, Mr Pig is a janitor. Lemongrab is just there. LSP(Q?) is a teacher because that's hilarious. Hunson is dead along with Marceline's mom because fuck hunson. Magic Man is a hobo that snuck onto campus and can't be chased off (his brother is the superintendent, Glob). there's a lot more but that's for a different word doc.
7.) Back to the Future AU: So PB fucks around with time travel, right? For science. She gets sent back in time a thousand years, before the war. Now, she's a pink lady who can shoot jelly beans from her hands, of course needs to lay low. And of course she needs to get home, but she's in a Futurama situation where she only has one type of time machine; the one that can go into the past. Not to mention her own time machine got busted on her way there, so she's double screwed. But, she remembers something. There is an individual (two, actually) that knows about time travel in this time period. She knows him, and he's likely to help her if she plays her card right. She needs to find Simon and get back to her own time, preferably without dooming herself in the process. (perhaps she tries to steal the notes Simon has, and Simon's completely oblivious, except Betty can smell trouble from a mile away and immediately notices some pink woman trying to steal books and she goes ham. Perhaps she goes ham in such a way that Simon doesn't notice. Perhaps this goes on for seven acts.)
8.) Bread and Butter AU: Bella Noche during the episode Betty creates a huge black cube that engulfs all of Wizard City. This box acts as a cage and prevents Wizards from escaping the magic purge. Simon is unable to bring Betty back from the past, and he's fading fast. In a desperate attempt to stop things from escalating, Simon chugs a bottle of anti-magic like a fucking god. He gets through the cube that surrounds Bella Noche and knocks their lights out. He passes out, and when he comes to, the anti-magic he consumed as merged with him. This is because of a simple rule: Magic sticks to magic, anti-magic sticks to anti-magic. And since humans have always had just a little bit of anti -magic present within them, humans and anti-magic go together like bread and butter (badumtish) ((I have actually written a fanfic about this, you can find it here))
9.) Swapped AU: Through various shenanigans Ice King's and Magic Man's powers gets swapped. These shenanigans somehow land them in space as well. This happens before Magic Man's trial. The swapping of their powers results in Simon getting his memory back. It also gives Magic Man the Ice Crown, unfortunately for him though, it seems to hate him. Simon's glad to back, but quickly realizes one issue: He's still crazy. So the pair try to make it back to Ooo. MM needs his powers to swap himself with some other shmuck so he doesn't croak when his trial comes, but Simon's made it clear he isn't giving his powers up without a fight. The pair starts off rocky, neither trusting the other, but space trouble forces them to work together. Simon's a nice enough guy he wouldn't leave someone to die and MM really needs Simon alive so it works out. A weird friendship forms, and they learn get along. Just a couple of crazy space wizards. Then the crown is destroyed. MM is freed from the crown's control, and he's freed from magic. He gets his sanity back, just in time for his trial.
that’s all I’ve got for now!
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caitybug · 4 years
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It may be February but... why not haha. 
Below the cut, organized in chronological order, are the fics I wrote in 2020! All put into one place :D. Thank you to everyone who read, kudos’d, commented, beta’d, and supported my writing. It was my first ever year writing fanfiction, and I am so thankful for all the friends I’ve made because of it.
<3 <3
If Not For You
Word count: 92,461 Chapters: 36 Rating: M
Summary:
Simon was born and raised in the midwest, and he thinks he has his life figured out. He has a girlfriend that he feels happy with, is excited to drive for his junior year, and can't wait to get away from his father when he goes away for school.
However, this all changes when his mom dies and he is carted to the east coast to start at a boarding school. Simon then has to deal with having a roommate (who hates him), living with his mother's death, and wanting to be anywhere but where he is.
To add to it all, one day he gets a strange phone call, and he wonders if his mother's death was really an accident at all.
author’s note:
This was my first like actual fic. And my first try at writing something. This fic will always have a special place in my heart because it helped lead me to all the amazing people I now call friends <3
Not only that but it was a bit of therapy for me. (Self insert? In MY fanfiction? More likely than you’d think!)
Anyway, whenever someone comments, leaves kudos, or otherwise acknowledge that the fic exists I get emotional haha. I also have like three playlists for it too haha.
The Heist
Word Count:7456 Rating:T
Summary:
It's the fourth year of the Halloween heist, and Baz is determined to win. He thinks he has it all planned, that he knows Simon Snow through and through.
Despite this, somehow Simon still manages to surprise him.
author’s note:
b99 AU bahaha. Need I say more??
Pay Your Fines, Snow
Word Count: 1524 Rating: T
Summary:
Baz Pitch works at the local library every summer. He's annoyed at kids who run around, people who don't follow directions, and Simon Snow- who can't pay a fine on time.
author’s note
This fic was the first of the fics that sparked all my crazy prompts haha. It was so much fun to do! 
There is a wonderful podfic of this made by the amazing and beautiful @xivz​, and it also has art now by @peachpit-gabe!! Go check it out here. 
A Rebirth
Word Count: 3374 Rating: T
Summary:
Simon and Baz need to finish their presentation for their Art History class. However, Baz also got pulled into watching his younger siblings for the weekend.
Frozen 2, chicken nuggets, sword fights, and themes of Renaissance.
author’s note
I wrote this for the amazing @krisrix as a prompt! It was so much fun to do and I legit wrote the whole thing in like one afternoon and had it looked over and posted it haha. I still feel bad because Kris legit asked for babies and I kicked the babies out at the beginning of the fic LOL. 
Coming Together in Three Parts
Word Count: 4639 Rating: M Chapters: 3
Summary:
Three snippets of their lives after Wayward Son.
author’s note:
The summary definitely leaves a lot to be imagined haha. But I decided to pull a @ninemagicks and give a metaphor of threes and I love yous. So it’s three lovely stages after Wayward Son. There’s the I Love You, the moving in, and then a marriage proposal. I was fairly proud of this! And I did this as an exchange fic as well. 
The Three Acts of a Wizard
Word Count: 6439 Rating: T
Summary:
Today, Baz is giving Simon a reprieve (or, that's what he is telling Simon.)
Cue a removal of cursed body parts, a grumpy fireplace who *knows* what is happening, and a shrill frizzy-haired friend threatening to poison some scones.
(this is a remix fic for @ninemagicks​ HMC AU YWSAFS
author’s note:
I wrote this for Nena’s birthday in the summer! Their friendship has meant the world to me, and this story is what I think gave me the gall courage to message them and harass them with 2k word comments/metas haha. If you’ve not read their fic, make sure to do so!
Heaven is a Place on Earth
Word Count: 12,711 Rating: M Chapters: 5 Summary:
Five hours each week. That's all Simon and Baz get.
But we know that's all they need to fall in love...
~~
A San Junipero AU
author’s note:
This fic idea came to me randomly and I literally wrote it in a week. I love it so much, and despite being MCD I think it’s still generally happy (I mean.. they do end up together??) Idk, it has a special place in my heart. And I made @krisrix read Baz with an american accent so... win win haha. 
(Un)Sexy Saturday
Word Count: 6157 Rating: M/E Chapters: 9 (they’re different stories each chapter.)
Summary:
Summaries vary by chapter. Overall it’s just a collection of silly stories where sex gets interrupted. 
author’s note:
Honestly this series was so fun to do. I need to continue it sometime! From beauty blender butt plugs, to swingers, to garlic allergies... it just makes me laugh haha. 
5 Times Simon Wanted a Fistbump, and the 1 Time He Finally Got It
Word Count: 5489 Rating: T Chapters: 6
Summary:
Simon Snow hasn't had a lot of friends in his life. He has Penny, who is great, of course. He has Baz (but does he count as a friend?)
So now, seeing Shepard, he's got a chance at a friend. A bro of sorts.
Simon sees the final hurdle in their friendship to be a fist bump. A simple signal of their friendship.
But how long is it going to take to get it??
~~
5 + 1 Yearning for a Fist Bump.
author’s note:
Simpard. Friendship. And art by @nick-eyre?? Perfection. 
A Goblin’s Skull, Maccies, and a Door Handle
Word Count: 2017 Rating: T
Summary:
Simon Snow wakes up in a building he doesn't know, tied up and blindfolded.
Luckily his best bro Shepard is there too.
author’s note:
Wrote this as a little bday treat for @nick-eyre :D. Decided to give Simon a friend who would also lust after goblins with him haha. 
One Word, Four Letters, A Lifetime's Worth of Pain: IKEA
Word Count: 2428 Rating: T
Summary:
Baz comes home and notices the house is suspiciously quiet.
When he finds Simon, surrounded by unfinished pieces of furniture, he can't help but ask... why?
Author’s note:
This was written as a birthday gift for @foolofabookwyrm! She is an absolute gem and has never been to IKEA, but now I hope she understands the struggle of building IKEA furniture haha. 
The Beat of My Heart
Word Count: 2230 Rating: T
Summary:
Simon is kneeling on the ground, waiting for Baz to come home.
He has a question. One he's wanted to ask for a while.
author’s note:
This was written as a birthday gift for @krisrix! A little proposal fic for the rat king <3 <3
Out of My Mind
Word Count: 10876 Rating: M Chapters: 3
Summary:
Baz and Simon are living their lives, domestic and content. They have a nine-year-old daughter, a Sunday morning routine, and plans to be alone for the first time for a while.
But when a girl who is growing into her powers reads something she shouldn't, they get into a predicament they don't expect.
author’s note:
This was a COE gift for @krisrix! Body Swap! Parents! Married! I tried to do it all for him haha. 2020 was really the year where I was like yeah, let’s write Kris a million fics. And honestly—wouldn’t have it any other way.
Imposter vs Crewmates
Word Count: 754 Rating: T
Summary:
Everyone has their quarantine coping strategies.
Simon tried to bake bread.
Baz watched Twilight.
But Penelope...
She introduced the gang to Among Us.
author’s note:
Look. I’ve no excuses for this lolol. Just thought it’d be silly :D. 
The Ethics of Wanting You
Word Count: 1417 Rating: T
Summary:
Simon Snow realized recently that he has a crush on Baz.
Penny suggested he find reasons to spend more time with him, so he suggests a study session for their ethics exam the following day.
(It doesn't go as planned, but the result is very much worth it.)
author’s note:
Birthday gift for @peachpit-gabe <3 <3. Just a cute one shot with snowbaz.
Pumpkin, Let’s Make a Patch
Word Count: 2516 Rating: T
Summary:
Simon Snow is trying to create a neighborhood pumpkin patch.
Baz, unknowingly, rips the pumpkins out of his front lawn.
(How will he make it up to him?)
author’s note:
This was done for the COC. I based it off this cute tiktok series with this kid who rode around on his skateboard and plants pumpkins around his neighborhood.
Weathering the Storm
Word Count: 2248 Rating: T
Summary:
Shepard was nine when he first met a boy he'd learn was Simon Snow.
He was in a ditch crying, and Shepard wasn't sure what to make of him.
This boy lived in his mind until he saw him again years later.
And today, when there's a storm unlike any other in London, he knows who must be at the center of it.
author’s note:
Honestly. This is probably one of my favorite things I’ve ever written. IDK. It’s so short but... I love it. And if you like to listen to fics— @bloodiedpixie did a phenomenal podfic of it! And @nick-eyre did AMAZING art for it too <3. 
New Beginnings
Word Count: 2090 Rating: T
Summary:
It's the first New Years Eve after the Christmas that changed everything.
After Simon Snow and Baz kissed.
After they defeated the humdrum.
After the Mage's death.
But, as many of us do, it's time to take the New Year as an opportunity to begin anew.
author’s note:
Part of a server exchange I did for @knitbelove :D. 
And, all of the prompts I’ve yet to put on ao3... lolol
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rhosyn-du · 3 years
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Never make a mess when a total catastrophe will do - Chapter Four
Pairings: Jimon, past Clace, background Clizzy, a bunch of other minor background pairings Rating: Explicit Art: @cor321​ Beta: @all-thestories-aretrue​ Tags:  Alternate Universe - College/University, fake dating, oh my god they were roommates, friends with benefits, idiots to lovers, pining, miscommunication, holidays, drinking games, mistletoe, symbolically significant Oreos, domestic fluff, brief mention of past character death, Jace’s self-worth issues deserve their own tag Summary: What do you do when you find out your sister is not only dating your ex and love-of-your-high-school-life but is also bringing her home for Christmas? Bring your annoying, hot, annoyingly-hot roommate as your fake boyfriend to show them you're totally fine with it, obviously! There's no possible way this could backfire. Link: AO3 , Tumblr Master Post
Chapter Four
Clary, it turned out, was very good at Land Mines. But so was Izzy. It only took a couple rounds for them to admit they played the game all the time, and a couple more rounds (both of which the Lightwoods lost) for Izzy to drunkenly (and loudly) explain that she thought it was hot when Clary got competitive.
Jace told her he didn’t want to hear about it, and he hoped he wasn’t tipsy enough for her to notice what a hypocrite he was in saying it. Because competitive Simon? Was so hot. And Simon was pretty much hot all the time, even when he was annoying the hell out of Jace, but Simon going all-out trying to prove himself, and doing it every damned time, was something else. It didn’t help that right now he was doing it dressed in a tighter than usual t-shirt that proclaimed him a “Jedi in the streets, Sith in the sheets” that Clary (who most definitely noticed Jace’s appreciation of how tight the shirt was) gleefully informed Jace had been a present from her.
“Another win for Team Fray-Lewis,” Simon proclaimed as his coin spun to a stop without touching any of the glasses on the table. He and Clary bumped fists without even looking at each other, and Simon flashed Jace a smug grin that did things to him. “Let’s see you top that, hotshot.”
Jace returned a cocky grin of his own. “You should know better by now than to question my skills.”
Thankfully for Jace’s ego, and his liver, his own spin came tumbling to rest right before hitting a double-size shot glass of tequila. The same shot glass Clary’s coin hit moments later.
Clary winced. “Sorry, Si.”
“All right,” Simon said, narrowing his eyes. “All right.” He downed his shot and licked the excess from his lips in a way that Jace found very distracting. If he didn’t know better, he’d think Simon was doing it on purpose. “We’ve still got this.”
“Damn right we do,” Clary agreed, knocking back her own shot and then grabbing Izzy for a messy kiss. “A kiss for luck,” she announced.
“I’m not even on your team, silly,” Izzy giggled.
By the time they finished the game, Jace and Izzy having only just squeaked by with a win, the party was in full swing, and Jace was feeling pleasantly buzzed. With several hours left to go until midnight, he decided to pass on the cocktail Magnus offered him in favor of plain soda. As much as he’d joked about hangovers, that was the last way he wanted to start the new year, especially since he had plans with Alec and Magnus the next day, and they both seemed to be somehow magically immune to hangovers.
Jace let himself get swept up in the atmosphere of the party: dancing, joking with his siblings, getting into an inane argument with Magnus’s friend Ragnor about which of Scott Joplin’s works was most influential. And somehow, he always managed to find himself back by Simon’s side. He should have been doing it as part of keeping up the appearance of being his boyfriend, but it was less that he was intentionally trying to spend time around Simon and more that he was allowing himself not to not be around Simon. The realization should have annoyed him, but somehow it didn’t.
Especially since Simon seemed just as drawn to his side. Which was probably Simon keeping up appearances, since he’d proven himself to be incredibly good at it so far. It was almost comfortable. Right up until it was something else entirely.
Jace and Simon had been chatting with Dot—a friend of Magnus’s who’d apparently been a neighbor of Clary’s and Simon’s when they were kids—when Clary, who had clearly not stopped drinking after their game, interrupted by throwing her arms over Jace and Dot’s shoulders. “You guys should come dance with me,” she told them. “Izzy’s busy talking to Magnus about shoes, and I wanna dance, and you guys are like three of my very favorite people who aren’t Izzy, so I want you to dance with me.”
“Of course,” Dot laughed, wrapping an arm around Clary’s waist and twirling her toward the makeshift dance floor Magnus and Alec had made in their living room.
“You guys, come on!” Clary called over her shoulder, tripping and nearly falling before Dot caught her and turned it into a shaky dip.
Simon looked at Jace and offered his hand. “There’s really no point in arguing. She’s even more stubborn drunk than she is sober.”
“That’s a terrifying thought,” Jace said, taking Simon’s hand and following him onto the dance floor.
Jace lost track of how long they spent dancing, first with Clary and Dot, switching partners every few minutes at Clary’s enthusiastic insistence, and then just with each other after Izzy reappeared and Clary abandoned them to go cling to her girlfriend like some kind of hyper-affectionate koala.
“I honestly can’t believe she’s still standing,” Simon said. “She’s had at least three margaritas since we finished our game, and I didn’t even want to think about drinking after that many shots.”
“She was probably consoling herself after you guys lost so badly,” Jace said, moving closer than the music or space strictly demanded. “I wouldn’t know what it’s like, but losing sure seems like it would suck.”
“Uh huh,” Simon said. “Because you winning by a single shot was so very impressive.”
“It really was,” Jace agreed.
The music made a surprisingly smooth transition from pounding bass to Duke Ellington, and Simon grabbed Jace’s hand to pull him into some kind of swing dance that Jace was not at all familiar with.
“Really?” Simon asked with obvious relish. “You don’t know how to Lindy Hop?”
“I’m not an old man or terminally nerdy, so no,” Jace answered, not quite managing to follow Simon’s steps, but not making a complete fool out of himself either. He supposed that was one good thing to come out of that ridiculous mandatory high school PE swing dance unit.
“So, are you calling Magnus old or a nerd?” Simon asked, nodding to the other side of the dance floor, where Magnus was twirling Dot like they were both professional dancers.
“Magnus is a special case,” Jace said.
“Because your brother would murder you in your sleep for saying anything bad about him?” Simon suggested.
Jace snorted a laugh. “I plead the fifth.”
“You know what I think?” Simon asked, doing a rock-step then smoothly maneuvering Jace into a gentle twirl.
“I’m sure you’re going to tell me,” Jace said.
“I think you just don’t know how to deal with not being good at something. So you’re an ass about anything you aren’t good at.”
“Nah,” Jace said, attempting to mimic Simon’s earlier move and managing to awkwardly spin him into a twirl of his own. “You just always react so well when I’m an ass to you that I can’t resist doing it.”
“Ah, got it. So you’re basically saying you never matured past middle school.”
“You’re one to talk about maturity. Do I need to remind you that the first thing you did when I introduced you to my sister was ask to see her Lego collection?”
“In my defense,” Simon said, “I was trying to save us all from probable food poisoning.” He executed another twirl, this time one that ended with his arms wrapped around Jace from behind, which Jace definitely felt no way at all about. “Also, it was a really great Lego collection.”
The music changed again, back to a modern club beat, and Jace felt some of the tension leave his body. This was the kind of music he knew how to dance to. And maybe there was just the tiniest bit of truth to what Simon had said about him not knowing how to be bad at things.
It was just natural and not at all pettiness over Simon being right that had him rolling his hips with the beat of the new song, which just consequently happened to grind his ass back against Simon’s crotch. And, okay, there was maybe just the tiniest bit of satisfaction in hearing Simon’s sharp intake of breath.
“Just try not to do that when someone you’re actually dating brings you home for the first time.”
Jace wasn’t entirely sure how to identify what he felt when Simon leaned forward to speak directly in his ear. “And what do you think I should have done?” Simon’s breath was hot against his skin. “If we were actually dating?”
Jace spun around to face him. “If we were actually dating, Alec would have been on his own defending dinner from Izzy, because I wouldn’t have taken you back downstairs until I was done very thoroughly showing you my bedroom.”
It came out sounding much less like a joke than he intended, the truth behind his words bleeding through his shaky bravado. And he knew Simon heard it, could see it in the soft surprise of his parted lips, could feel it in the faint tremor of the hand he still held.
“I guess,” Simon said, tongue darting out to wet his lips, drawing Jace’s eyes, “it’s a good thing for our digestive systems that we weren’t actually dating.”
This had been a mistake. Dancing with Simon like this, touching him like this. Inviting him to the party in the first place. This whole damned fake dating plan. Jace wanted desperately to lean in and trace the path of Simon’s tongue with his own.
“I don’t know,” he said instead. “I think it probably would have been worth it.”
They weren’t even pretending to dance now, Simon standing stock still, watching him as if trying to puzzle him out. Finally, he took a step back, loosening his hold. “Jace—”
“Attention, dearest friends and tolerated acquaintances!” Magnus’s voice rang through the loft as the music came to a sudden halt. Jace stayed as he was, unwilling to bring himself to let go of Simon entirely, unable to look away, and Simon seemingly similarly caught.
“We have invited you here this evening to help us ring in the new year, which, if you direct your attention to the clock right over there, you will see is now a mere thirty seconds away. So, grab your drink, grab your sweetie—or an attractive stranger, I won’t judge—and get ready to count down to a brand new year!”
Jace barely noticed as the countdown began around him, focused as he was on Simon. He only really caught on to what was happening when Simon’s lips began to move, softly counting down with the crowd even as his eyes never left Jace’s.
Jace had plenty of time to think through what he was about to do, with enough left over to second- and third-guess himself. Some people might have said thirty seconds wasn’t long enough to make a reasoned choice, but for someone like Jace, who made an art out of making impulsive, split-second decisions, thirty seconds was practically an eternity. He watched Simon’s lips form the final count of “one,” heard the crowd around them erupt into shouts of “Happy New Year!” and then he was surging forward.
Simon met him halfway, the kiss bruising and desperate. Jace was dimly aware of people around him laughing and cheering, but his entire world was narrowed down to this one moment, to this kiss. If their previous kisses had been chaste and family-appropriate, this was anything but. Simon kissed like he wanted to crawl inside Jace, one hand on the small of his back, pulling him close, the other tangled in his hair. Jace kind of wanted Simon to crawl inside him.
When Simon finally broke the kiss, Jace had to hold himself back from chasing his swollen, spit-slick lips. But whatever Simon saw when he looked at Jace had him muttering a soft “shit” before diving back in for more, so Jace considered it an all-around win.
Jace licked into Simon’s mouth, sliding the fingers of one hand under the hem of his shirt enough to trace along the waistband of his jeans, just above his hip. Simon shuddered and made a soft, desperate sound, and Jace made it his mission to elicit more of those sounds, to drive Simon just as crazy as those sounds were driving him.
When they broke the kiss for the second time, it was prompted by a sharp whistle that Jace would have recognized anywhere as Izzy’s followed by a cheer of, “Yeah, get it, Simon!” from Clary.
Simon looked slightly embarrassed at just how carried away they’d managed to get in the middle of a party, but Jace just smirked and threw a wink at his sister and her girlfriend.
A quick look around showed that, despite Izzy and Clary’s very loud attention, most of the partygoers were too involved in their own celebrations to be paying much attention to Jace and Simon, although it also seemed like the rest of them had long since finished up their celebratory kisses. The only other people paying them any attention at all were Magnus and Alec, who were standing nearby.
Alec wore the look of long-suffering fondness he often wore around Jace. “Please don’t have sex in my living room,” he said when he caught Jace’s eye.
“We weren’t—” Simon spluttered. “We wouldn’t—”
“At least use the guest room like civilized people,” Magnus added. Much less fondly, Jace thought.
“Oh god,” Simon muttered as Magnus swept off to speak with other guests, Alec in tow. “I’m never going to live this down. Fray is going to be teasing me about this until the day I die. And I think your brother hates me now.”
“Alec doesn’t hate you,” Jace said. “You would know if Alec hated you; he is not subtle. I’m sure he considers this one-hundred percent my fault.”
“Okay, but Magnus definitely hates me.”
“Dude,” Jace said, squeezing Simon’s shoulder, “Magnus doesn’t hate you, either. He wouldn’t have offered us his guest room if he hated you.”
Simon gave him a flat look. “Pretty sure he didn’t actually intend for us to use the guest room. We’d have to have basically no shame to just ditch the party and run off to the guest room to have sex after Clary and Izzy drew so much attention to us making out like horny teenagers in public.”
“You’ve known me how long, and you still operate under the misapprehension that I’m capable of shame?” Jace teased.
Except. Except he was only half-teasing, because he would absolutely ditch this party to go have sex with Simon in the guest room if he thought Simon was even a little bit interested in that. Hell, he’d ditch the party to have sex with Simon in the fucking closet.
And he was pretty sure Simon knew it, because Simon was staring at him again, with that same intensity he had right before they’d kissed. Jace smirked and very deliberately ran a tongue over his lower lip.
“I hate you,” Simon said without heat before dragging Jace into a quick, filthy kiss. “Where’s the guest room?”
Jace didn’t answer, just grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the hallway that led to the guest suite.
It took them several minutes to actually make it into the guest room because Jace decided halfway there that he kind of desperately needed to be kissing Simon again. It was like a dam had broken, and now that he was allowed to kiss Simon, really kiss him, he couldn’t seem to stop. But that was okay, because Simon didn’t seem interested in stopping, either.
When they finally stumbled into the guest room, Jace found himself promptly pinned against the door, Simon’s body pressing against him in a long, hard line, a situation which Jace found himself more than okay with.
“This,” Simon muttered between kisses, “is probably a terrible idea.”
“Yeah,” Jace agreed, sliding one leg between Simon’s leg to press against the bulge in his jeans and trying to ignore the bitter twist in his gut. “You want to stop?”
“Fuck,” Simon panted, grinding against Jace’s leg. “Really no.” He slid his hands beneath Jace’s shirt, pushing it up in a clear indication he wanted it off. “Just making sure we’re both on the same page with regard to our mutual terrible decision making.”
“You know me,” Jace said, raising his arms obligingly and helping Simon tug his shirt over his head. “Making terrible decisions with pretty people is kind of my thing.”
Jace’s shirt fell to the floor, and Simon just sort of froze for a second before reaching out and sliding his hands up Jace’s chest almost reverently. “God,” he muttered, “you are just unfairly hot.” His hands stilled suddenly, and he met Jace’s eyes, brows furrowed. “You think I’m pretty?”
“Yes, dumbass,” Jace said, reaching up to cup Simon’s face. “Did the last ten minutes not clue you in?”
“I—”
Jace silenced whatever Simon was about to say with another kiss. With as much as he was feeling right now, kissing was safer than talking. He’d probably said too much already.
He flipped them around so he was pressing Simon into the door, breaking the kiss just long enough to say, “Oh, hey, I found an effective way to make you stop talking. Should have thought of this sooner.”
“Fuck you,” Simon mumbled against his mouth.
“Maybe later,” Jace told him, tugging at Simon’s belt. “Right now I just need to get my hands on you.”
“Yeah,” Simon agreed dazedly as Jace worked open his jeans. “Yeah, okay, that sounds really—” He broke off with an almost wounded noise as Jace reached inside his boxers and wrapped a hand around his cock.
Jace kissed him again, slow and deliberate just like the hand on Simon’s cock. Jace felt back on firmer ground, now. This, sex, was something he understood, something he was good at. Slick tongues and writhing bodies were far more straightforward—far less dangerous—than feelings.
For a few strokes, Simon seemed content to just take what Jace was giving him, but then he was kissing back with almost bruising intensity and fumbling open Jace’s pants to wrap a calloused hand around his dick, and it was everything.
Jace lost track of things at that point, lost in the feel of Simon’s deft fingers around his cock, of Simon thrusting into his hand, of Simon’s mouth on his own, of Simon. And then Simon was murmuring something unintelligible against Jace’s mouth as the movement of his hips became erratic and then he was shaking apart in Jace’s arms, coming all over his hand and abdomen, and Jace thought, as he followed Simon over the edge seconds later, it might have been the hottest thing he’d ever experienced.
“Holy shit,” Simon said after they’d both caught their breath. “That actually just happened.”
Jace let out a soft huff of laughter. “You noticed, huh?” He stepped back just enough that he could see Simon’s face and was dismayed at the wariness he found there.
“I guess,” Simon said, “I should probably get cleaned up and, like. Go?”
There was a pit forming in Jace’s stomach, and he hated it.
“Alternate plan,” he offered with far more assurance than he felt. “We both get cleaned up, and then we find out how nice the sheets are on Alec and Magnus’s guest bed. I was planning to sleep here tonight anyway.” Whatever this was, Jace wasn’t ready for it to end yet.
“Oh,” Simon said on a heavy exhale. “That’s—” He swallowed hard. “I don’t want to, like, intrude, or—”
He broke off as Jace took his hand, the one covered in come, and slowly and deliberately began licking it clean, eyes never leaving Simon’s. Simon watched, entranced, barely breathing.
When Jace was satisfied he’d gotten every drop, he smirked up through lowered lashes. “Simon. Come to bed with me?”
“Yeah,” Simon said breathily. “Okay. But if Magnus decides he hates me, I’m blaming you.”
“Do me a favor, and don’t talk about my future brother-in-law when I just had my hand down your pants.” Then, because it had proven such an effective way to get Simon to stop talking in the past (and definitely not for any other reason), Jace kissed him.
By the time they’d finished cleaning up and tumbled into bed, Jace was feeling loose and sleepy. He abandoned his previous, half-formed plans of getting Simon’s dick in his mouth in favor of lazy, unhurried kisses and caresses that were maybe too gentle for what this was. There would be time for blowjobs later. In the morning, maybe. After sleep, in any case.
Jace wasn’t aware of when kissing Simon in reality bled into dream.
~~~
Jace wasn’t hungover when he woke. He kind of wished he were hungover, because that would provide an explanation for why the world didn’t seem quite set straight and he felt vaguely nauseous that had nothing to do with the cold, empty bed he woke up in.
It was stupid to be upset Simon hadn’t stayed. Jace knew it was stupid. He’d known going in that it wouldn’t be more than a one-time thing. Simon had flat-out said it was a mistake. But there was a part of him that had thought—had hoped—maybe Simon would change his mind.
Telling himself he was just upset over having lost the chance for that morning blowjob he’d been planning, Jace forced himself out of bed and into the shower. The shower in Alec and Magnus’s guest suite was kind of amazing, with one of those rainfall shower heads and hot water that just never seemed to end. It helped ease some of Jace’s tension, and by the time he finished showering and pulled on some clothes, he was feeling almost back to his normal self.
Alec greeted him as he stepped out into the living room, already having claimed a spot on the couch. The room was back to its normal configuration, couch and loveseat facing a large, flat-screen TV. The coffee table held a giant plate of nachos, a bag of dry roast peanuts, and a disgustingly large tub of Red Vines.
“Welcome to the land of the living,” Alec said. “I was starting to worry you were going to miss the opening kick.”
“Please,” Jace said, flopping down onto the other couch. “I haven’t missed the opening kick of a bowl game since I was eleven, and that was only because you gave me the stomach flu.”
“Don’t blame me for that!” Alec protested. “Izzy was the one who started barfing first. If anyone brought that into the house, it was her.”
“Izzy didn’t give me big, sad puppy dog eyes and ask me to hold her hair back.”
“Hey,” Alec said, “we don’t talk about the hair, okay? Everyone makes at least one big mistake in their life, and mine was my seventh grade Zac Efron hair.”
“It’s my duty as your brother to make sure you never forget any terrible fashion choices you’ve made,” Jace said around a mouthful of nachos.
“You know that means it’s my duty as a brother to do the same for you, right?”
“You can try,” Jace said breezily, “but you and I both know I’ve never made any terrible fashion choices.”
“Two words for you,” Alec said. “Parachute pants.”
“They were on trend at the time,” Jace insisted. “My parachute pants were cool.”
“Keep telling yourself that, Jace. Parachute pants were never cool.”
Jace decided to be mature about the whole thing and chucked a Red Vine at Alec’s head. Alec ducked, then picked up the Red Vine from where it had landed on his shoulder and popped it into his mouth.
“That’s disgusting,” Jace told him. “I can’t believe you still eat those things.”
“It’s tradition,” Alec said with a shrug. “I only eat them on New Year’s. Besides, I like the sweetened wax aesthetic they’ve got going on.”
“Disgusting,” Jace repeated, pulling a Red Vine out of the tub for himself.
“Hey,” Alec said, suddenly serious, “you didn’t have to stay, you know.” When Jace just stared at him in confusion, he added, “You could have gone to Simon’s family thing with him. I wouldn’t have minded.”
Jace scoffed. “Of course I couldn’t.” He hadn’t even known Simon had a family thing today. “It’s tradition, like the Red Vines. Just because I’m dating someone and you’re about to get married doesn’t mean I’m going to flake on our New Year’s tradition.”
“Well, you should probably be prepared to make it up to your man when you get home,” Alec said. “He looked kinda upset when he left this morning.”
Jace’s earlier nausea returned suddenly, with full force. “He did?”
“Oh, don’t look like that. I’m sure he’ll get over it. The guy clearly adores you.”
“Yeah,” Jace said, pasting on a smile. “He does.”
“And I am glad you’re here,” Alec added. “I love Magnus, but he doesn’t understand football.”
“Not a fan, huh?”
“Worse,” Alec groaned. “He’s a Big Red fan. And he always gets so smug when they win.”
“And you’re sure you want to marry this guy?” Jace joked.
“Yeah,” Alec said, his whole demeanor softening. “I really am.”
“Which is a good thing, because our catering deposit is definitely non-refundable,” Magnus interjected, bringing a wings-laded plate to join the rest of the snacks on the table. “Besides, if I can get over the fact that you actually attended Columbia, you can deal with my allegiance to the clearly superior Ivy League team.”
“I’m not sure you can say you’re over it when you still say ‘Columbia’ like it’s a dirty word,” Alec observed.
“Nonsense,” Magnus said, settling onto the couch next to his fiancé. “I say dirty words with a great deal more relish. That was, in fact, an insult to dirty words.”
“You’re lucky I love you,” Alec said, rolling his eyes.
“That, we can agree on.”
“If you two are done being sappy,” Jace said, grabbing the TV remote and unmuting the pre-game commentary, “there’s about to be a game on.”
They were not, it turned out, done being sappy, but their cheerful bickering was almost enough to distract Jace from having woken up alone. Almost.
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solynaceawrites · 4 years
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Wires [4]: Frustration
Rating: Mature Archive Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Major Character Death Categories: F/F, F/M Fandom: Devil May Cry Relationships: Dante/Original Female Character(s), Implied Nero/Kyrie, Implied Vergil/Original Female Character(s), Implied Lady/Trish, Dante/Lirael Thorne, Dante/Lir Characters: Dante, Morrison, Nero, Original Female Character(s), Lirael Thorne, Lir Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Violence, Gore, Dark, Horror, Supernatural Elements, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Serial Killers, Angst, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut Summary: In Red Grave City, a serial killer stalks the streets. Lirael Thorne, recently transferred from Fortuna and looking for an escape from her past, winds up on his trail. Hunting him with her veteran partner, Dante Redgrave, they try to piece together the wires that bind the three of them together. In a race to catch him before he leaves more victims in his wake, the things thought buried will come to the surface, tearing lives and comfort apart.
»»————- ⚜ ————-««
“Death and life are the same thing- like the two sides of my hand, the palm and the back. And still the palm and back are not the same . . . They can neither be separated, nor mixed.” —Ursula K. Le Guin
»»————- ⚜ ————-««
Lir takes Simon Marson’s statement with a grain of salt. It’s not that she doesn’t trust him—she doesn’t trust lawyers as a whole, but nothing so far has given her a reason to believe he’d outright lie—just that she’s learned firsthand how memories get clouded and fuzzy, particularly about routines. Sure, their victim worked for him. And, yes, she probably did the exact same thing every day, going to her paid internship at her father’s office Monday through Saturday, taking Sunday off, and spending Friday night bar-hopping with her friends. Yet there’s simply too much Marson was unaware of. The questions of who her friends are, what she did when she wasn’t working, her hobbies, any potential lovers, hell even where she lived, are all ones he provided no answer to or understanding of. To him, Sophie truly existed only in the hours between 8:00 am and 6:30 pm. Which isn’t exactly unusual, but it makes her job of following those leads harder, and she ends their interview feeling more irritated than she had when she started.
Dante, too, must be frustrated, because he says nothing at all to her when he leaves the observation room to join her at their desks, merely clacking angrily on his keyboard as he types his report. Lir does the same, transcribing the interview with Marson and her notes to send to Morrison later. A stiff drink is what she needs, maybe a call to Joan for a bit of relaxation, but she settles for chewing aspirin and drinking the bitter coffee unique to precincts. By the time she’s done recounting the events of the last thirty-six hours, her fingers are stiff and the throbbing in her temples has turned into a fierce clawing that makes her eyes water, and she’s keenly aware of the fact that they’re fast closing in on the forty-eight hour mark and how much more difficult this investigation is going to be beyond it.
“You eaten?” Dante asks. Lir shakes her head, and he picks up his phone, dialing quickly. “Me neither. ‘Bout to keel over, if I’m honest. You good with pizza?”
“Sure. Whatever toppings are fine.”
He flashes her a grin before speaking into the receiver, and Lir uses the time to read back over Trish’s findings. They aren’t pretty. While there were no ligature marks, showing that Sophie was neither restrained nor strangled, there were heavy levels of Rohypnol in her blood, meaning she would have been unable to do anything at all. In fact, Trish notes that the dose probably would have been fatal, given the fact that Sophie was well over the legal limit for intoxication, clocking a BA of 0.16%, putting her at the threshold for alcohol poisoning. Did she normally drink so much? Lir runs her fingers over the paper, frowning slightly as she thinks. Joan hadn’t said much more about Sophie’s habits other than her cocktail of choice, and they hadn’t asked for a receipt, a stupid oversight that needs to be corrected. Because if that much liquor was’t common for Sophie, it means either she was drinking a lot more, which could lead them to recent stresses.
Or that the killer was feeding her margaritas all night to make sure she was too weak to fight him.
“There was no phone recovered from the alley, right?” she asks. Dante gives a grunt as he hangs up the phone, and she leans back, stretching to relieve the tension in her shoulders. “We’ve got to find her friends, talk to them.”
“What about the mother?”
“Gone. Parents divorced when Sophie was . . .” Lir checks her notes. “Six. The original custody agreement was for the mom to have supervised visitation, but she went no contact when Sophie was twelve. The last Marson heard from her, she was living with her new husband in Portland.”
Dante whistles. “No contact? Think Marson was abusing her?”
“Maybe. But why would Sophie hang around, if that was the case? You watch your dad beat on your mom for six years and wind up working for him?”
He grunts and leans back, crossing his arms over his chest and staring thoughtfully at a spot just over her right shoulder. “Abuse doesn’t always make it to the kids,” he says after a moment. “Sure, maybe pops was an asshole, but he was probably smart enough to keep it behind closed doors. Or maybe there wasn’t anything goin’ on other than two people who didn’t want to be together anymore.” He pauses to take a sip of coffee. “Could have been mom, too.”
“Right.” Lir massages her temples, and the pressure there subsides enough that she no longer feels like her eyes are going to burst. A migraine is the last thing she needs right now, but that’s exactly where she’s headed if she doesn’t get some sort of rest soon. “So, we have a victim whose father knows nothing about her personal life, a killer who was smart enough to make sure we couldn’t trace her beyond the bar, and, after nearly forty hours, no real answers.”
“Sounds about right.” Dante’s grin is bitter.
“Fuck.” She drums her fingers on her desk. “Crime scene still roped off?”
“As far as I know. You plannin’ a visit?”
“Yeah. I need to get some air, and I want to take it in now that it’s quiet.” Lir grabs her coat from the back of her chair as she stands, sliding it on before leaning to open her desk and grab her gun and badge. Fastening them to her belt, she mutters, “Maybe something got missed.”
Dante gets up, stretching with a loud yawn. “Alright. I’ll go with you.”
“I don’t need—”
“I’m not babysittin’ you, Lir.” His eyes are somehow both grave and mocking, and she’s not sure which irritates her more. “There’s a killer. None of us should be goin’ out alone, especially with the statistics about who else might show up there to get their jollies.”
That gives her pause. “Right. Okay. You driving?”
He dangles his keys. Lips twitching, she turns and heads down the stairs and out to the lot, listening to the quiet thumping of Dante’s shoes as he follows her. For someone so big, he doesn’t make a lot of noise when he moves, and she wonders idly if it’s a force of habit or just how he is as she slides into the passenger seat of his car and fastens her seatbelt. Like always, he flicks on the radio and finds a classic rock station before starting the drive, and he ignores her popping two aspirin into her mouth and chewing them dry. 
The ride back to the alley passes in the silence between them. Lir looks out of her window, the rain sliding along the glass turning the world outside to a muted painting of blurred shapes and bright flashes of color on an otherwise dreary background, and thinks. Sophie Marsons had gone to the bar, as was her usual weekend habit, and ordered her preferred drink. Had she gone with friends? Had they danced, and laughed, until a stranger stole into their group, with eyes only for Sophie, eyes full of murder that she might have mistaken for desire? Despite what she had said to Dante about their victim being chosen randomly, Lir has little doubt that she knew her killer. Statistics point to it, the inevitable need for the comfort brought by familiarity that a new killer needs to do his work. Statistics, the voice of her old academy instructor rasps in her mind, are statistically incorrect.
If Sophie wasn’t the first, then there’s another victim out there.
Cold, bitter rain lashes her as soon as she steps out of the car. Huffing, watching her breath condense and twist in the air, Lir pulls her hood up around her face and tucks her hands into her pockets, wishing she had a slicker even if the garish yellow color of it would make her stick out like a sore thumb. Dante joins her, grimacing as he sets a black trilby on his head, water dripping from the brim steadily. “Good thing we already got forensics,” he mutters.
“Mm.” Making a non-committal noise in her throat, she ducks under the crime scene tape and walks into the alley, where she stands and takes it in. Without pedestrian and vehicular traffic on the street, it’s unnervingly quiet; is this how it was at four in the morning? Nothing but silence as the dull oppressiveness of the city while Sophie was carved open like livestock? 
Lir is moving towards the dumpster when something rustles behind it. Pausing, she stares at it, her brow pinched and her hand moving slowly to her gun, waiting. Cat, she thinks, or rat. Something digging for scraps now that humanity has gone away. But the silhouette she can just make out on the other side is too large, and, as she watches, a tanned hand grips the edge before a rain-soaked head pokes cautiously around, the eyes that she sees wide enough that the whites are like spotlights. Behind her, she hears Dante hiss, the faint splash of water as he slowly comes up beside her. Looks like he was right. Someone else had shown up, and now all that’s left to do is figure out whether or not they’re the murderer.
“Police,” Dante barks. “Don’t move!”
The man jumps to his feet and takes off, and Lir lets out a string of curses as she darts after him. They always fucking run, guilty or innocent, because seeing a cop always makes them feel like they’ve done something wrong. Bearers of bad news, thugs with guns, she’s heard it all, and she wonders how this guy thinks of the police even as she chases him down the winding alleys of a city she’s already growing to hate. “Thorne!” Dante shouts, his voice dwindling as the distance between them grows. “Goddamnit, Thorne!”
Up ahead, the black coat swirls as the man rushes through the maze. Sometimes all she has is a glimpse of fabric as he turns a corner, others, on the straight, narrow stretches, she can make out more of him, and her mind catalogues these snapshots. Slender build. Dark jeans. Heavy boots. The glint of a ring. A pair of wild eyes peering over his shoulder. Despite knowing she should draw it, Lir leaves her gun holstered. Don’t you ever, her instructor had said gravely, take that thing out unless you intend to shoot, and she’s got no desire to fire a bullet that would at best embed itself harmlessly into a wall and at worst ricochet and cause more damage.
Her hood falls back, rain plastering her hair to face and neck. In her chest, her heart is a drum, and her blood roars in her ears, equaled only by the low whistle of her breathing as she tries to control it to fight off fatigue. Keep moving, she tells her legs, don’t fucking stop until you know who he is.
At her hip, her radio crackles, only to be ignored. Right now, it is only her and her prey, locked in the chase until one of them is forced to stop. Guilty people run, sure. So do frightened ones. Which is he? Killer or morbid onlooker, dangerous or afraid? 
Lir never gets the chance to find out. They burst into a side-street, the cars around them blaring horns of fear and anger at this sudden intrusion, and a hand clamps onto her shoulder and yanks her back as a truck passes through the space she’d been about to step into. By the time it and its trailer clear out, the man is gone, and a scream bubbles in her throat that she fights to swallow. She knows who grabbed her—the scent of Dante’s cologne, muted by the rain, wafts into her nose, accompanied by the spiced, salty blend of sweat and deodorant—and she allows him to lead her back to the sidewalk, where she doubles over with her hands on her thighs and struggles to slow her breathing from the harsh, jagged pants to something close to normal. At this angle, she can make out the way water has turned the leather of his shoes a dull brown. Never gonna look nice again, she thinks, and closes her eyes against the swell of nausea that comes from exertion on an empty stomach.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” Dante growls, his voice rasping and hoarse from chasing her. “You ever stop to think for a damned second that we’d need backup? Or that chasing that idiot could have gotten you killed?”
The scolding makes her angry all over again. “I’m sorry,” she snaps, straightening to glare at him. “Should I have let our only lead so far go?”
“If it meant surviving? Yeah, you should’ve. Or were you hoping to wind up like Marsons?” His eyes are cold with fury, his cheeks flushed with it. “I told you, I fucking told you—”
Lir’s phone rings, cutting off whatever tirade he’d been heading towards. Scowling, she answers it. “Thorne.”
“You with Redgrave?” Morrison asks, crackling with static. 
“Yeah.” Dante makes an impatient motion with his hand, and she holds up a finger in the standard request for a minute of silence.
“Get your asses over to Tellula Park. He’ll know where it is.”
There’s something so foreboding about Morrison’s tone that Lir knows the answer to her question before she even asks it. “What’s there?”
Morrison sighs. “Another body. Looks like our killer didn’t want to wait for us to catch him.”
“We’ll be there.” She hangs up, then looks at Dante, frustration and defeat welling within her to make her voice curiously flat. “There’s another victim in Tellula Park.”
Dante curses. “Our guy?”
“Morrison said it was,” she replies.
He glances around, studying the street sign at the intersection. “C’mon. Car’s about two blocks away. We’ll have to book it if we don’t want Morrison to rip us new assholes for taking our sweet time.”
Lir nods. Dante turns and starts down the sidewalk, and she follows, craving a drink and a good night’s rest and maybe a bit of company, angry to have wasted time on some idiot onlooker when the killer was busy leaving them another corpse, another family to notify, another twisted web. I didn’t know, she thinks, and that just makes her feel worse. Tunnel vision, that’s what she had fallen into, too focused on what was in front of her nose to take a second to really contemplate if a killer who took such care not to be noticed would have been so stupid as to come back to the scene of his crime in the middle of the day with cops still around. 
They’re sweating and miserably damp by the time they reach the car. Dante pulls towels from the backseat for them to sit on—something her father had done, to keep water from damaging the seats—and turns on the heater to fight some of the chill. It’s only once they’re on their way to the new scene that he says anything at all. “It wasn’t your fault.”
Lir’s head snaps towards him at both the words and the sympathy within them. Not that it’s unusual for cops to know how their partner feels, but usually that takes years of working together, not days, so either he’s particularly good and reading the people around him or he’s projecting. “What?”
“The new victim,” he explains. “Wasn’t anything you could have done. We had and have nothing to go on, and you chasin’ that guy didn’t get this one killed. Or,” his mouth twitches, “do you think you’re better than every other cop on the force?”
“Of course not,” she protests hotly. “I just . . .”
Dante cracks the window and lights a cigarette that he pulls from the pack in his door. “Look,” he says, exhaling smoke, “I get it. You’re new, gotta prove yourself, and this guy is a pain in the ass. But you ain’t got any control over him, or what he does. Only thing you can do is learn, be better, so you can catch him.”
It’s spoken in the same tone he might have used to console a weeping toddler, and she bristles. “You don’t know me.”
“No, but I read your file.” He glances at her as he tosses the cigarette, still half-lit, out of the window. “You know what was top and center on the behavior section? Empathetic. You feel things, Thorne, feel ‘em deep, maybe, and that’s great for gettin’ inside the head of whoever’s doin’ this, but it means he can get inside your head, too, if you let him.”
She sinks into her seat, thinking of her dream, and gooseflesh breaks out across her arms despite the warm air blowing from the vents. “So what’s your drive, then? Fame? Promotions?”
Dante snorts. “Nah. Just don’t like bastards who hurt women, that’s all.” He pauses, then exhales slowly. “Look. I’m not gonna rat you out to Morrison. You made a decision that anyone else would’ve made. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t a fucking stupid decision, but . . . It stays between us. Right?”
There’s a rush of gratitude that she hates feeling. “Yeah. Okay.”
“Okay,” he agrees amicably.
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blushdressshop · 4 years
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God Made Scots A Wee Bit Better T-Shirt
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This country because America uniquely holds the promise of a God Made Scots A Wee Bit Better T-Shirt place where everyone can belong we know that for too many and for too long that promise has been denied but we also know America is at its best when we make that circle of belonging wider just over 10 years ago I joined the military where firing me because of who I am was just possible it was policy now in 2020 is unlawful in America to fire someone because of who they are or who they love the very ring on my finger away we celebrated here where I’m standing reflects how this country can change love makes my marriage real but political courage made it possible including that of Joe Biden who stepped out ahead even of this party when he said that marriage equality under the law of the land there is a long way to go but if this much can change between 2010 and 2020 imagine what could change between now and 2030 imagine what we could achieve this coalition we are building this very season gathering progressives and moderates independents and even what. Tony catfight theory meets up with themand Bruce Banner black widow continue to have a bit of a romance that is destined to fail is the both very damaged in different ways anyway in South Korea Ultram is building the perfect library embodied himself with the my stone from Loki scepter in its head over the twins find out Ultram is planning on killing everyone in the world not just Tony Starks that I like well Tony Stark is probably better than the entire will be destroyed so they team up with the avengers even just vital Tron in South Koreaand let us get away with that perfect body he made stuck in banner try to put Jarvis into this perfect body all the avengers alike K you try this beforeand this happened so maybe don’t but they do it anyway what’s alighting from Thor’s hammer the body comes to lifeand becomes the vision where she is a good guyand is also kind of invincible he proves his intentions by lifting Thor’s hammer saw speak plan is to lift up’s cobiaand drop it like a meteor onto the earth killing everyone the venture shopping fight with help from war machine who actually got the memo this timeand experience Ella carrierand if he all Tronand all is all shallotsand save the day now without any repercussions though Pietro maxima dissecting Hawkeye also a kid who’s in Segovia doing charity work is killed in battle as is the family of helmets IMO a succumbing soldierand not terribly nice guy Simon was so angry over the avengers indirectly killed his family is planning on how to get revenge he realizes he can’t defeat them directly as if a robot army can do that I was a sad strange little maggot to do it instead takes a page out of the Loki bookand decides to tell them apart from the inside also during the battle Bruce Banner hoax outand decides to fly off the Quinn jet which eventually ends up in space somehow after while it crashes in the planet of scar that junk plaintiff before because being a form planet is pretty stressful banner staysand hope for him he’s done by Valkyrie who remember is now a drunk who scavenges stuffand she brings into the Grand Master this very weird eccentric guy whose brother is actually the collector from earlier he runs in arena gladiator fighting thing on this planetand the whole becomes his number one champion over the next two years Houck fights in the arena learn some basic speech becomes closer Valkyrieand overall is really just loving life after all this store still weirded out positionsand goes up to look for the infinity stones goes around the universe for two years looking for them which for the record is a marvel one shot I would love to see but is completely unsuccessful the managers back on earth now set up base in New Yorkand move away from ledgers tower with this big new fancy facilityand Blackwood are going train scarlet which falcon war machineand vision to become real avengers why the indestructible laser shooting hyper intelligent robotic in the Thor’s hammer needs training I’m not entirely sure on Tony’s also there but he’s a little preoccupied with the relationship problems he’s now having with pepper which leads to them taking a break while in space status is getting real sick of everyone failing to get his stones so he decides he’s gonna do it himselfand by that I mean he’s going to wait three years to do it but he start planning now which most in getting a bigger glove called the infinity gauntlet that would let them hold the stones once he finds them unearthed the shield team gets to the human campand shield was to register all been humans on a big list so they’re all accounted for something like a human’s version of the Scobee Accords which will get you over the humans at the camp predictably don’t like this also people start realizing that Daisy’s mom is kind of evil so a big fight ensues in the war which is really more of a battle between shielding humans he follows his nonskilled anklesand loses his arm also those chargingand human crystalsand up in the oceanand spend the pillsand also to stuff so now in human start popping up moreand more around the world also Mays ex husband Garner egrets in humidified enter into this horrible monster called flash also grant one was to try to start by Dragon even though the avengers just fishing that Daisy also says about her dad who wasn’t such a bad guy after all he gets his memory erasedand start a new life may decides to take a break from shieldand Fitzsimmons finally start dating however risingand going Simmons is in the same room as the monolith which shield has occasional memory that’s the portal through which you go to this terrible ugly planet with an original inhuman monster hive lives she was the inspiration for Hydra away quick positive video here I really hope it doesn’t feel like I��m talking down you guys by saying in case your memberand that’s her stuff a lot I genuinely does make this as easy to followand not confusing as possible is especially for people who are defense of the stuff that haven’t washed all this already of this information is slightly hard to keep track of you a second thatand gets into that placeand he said last night was abandoned there a long time ago they become friendsand survive together after many years of service Frank S returns home to his family from his militaryand shady servers daysand it’s super niceand emotional however around this timeand Cerberus leaks with Cerberus was actually about including the video that it is a guiding shot to this guy called David whose nickname micro will be back in a sec agent orange transfer for doing this because he’s not a big fan of Frank’sand so with the help of the Cerberus squad including Frank supposed best friend Billy Russo he sets up a three way gunfight between three gangs in a park to kill Frankand his family Frank’s wifeand children are brutally murderedand Frankish on the head but survives after this Frank is enragedand devastated answer decides take matters into his own hands he uses his military trainingand pure anger to hunt downand kill everyone in the gangs involved with his family’s death he does this under the vigilante guys of the punisher first just make a plan though so that takes a little time now micro is a hackerand NSA analyst these to help a Daisy when she was working as a hacker’s analysis info that Cerberus doing legal stuffand he starts leaking it so agent orange triesand killed his men shoot microand think they killand really the bullet his phoneand so survived because phones are bulletproof in this world Michael doesn’t hidingand pretends to be dead even from his wifeand kids who he watches from security cameras Scott Lange has finally finished serving his time in prison for his crime that really was not badand is released going to stay with his old cellmateand pal Luis he wants to see his daughter but his life is moved on to another guyand so that’s difficult in its with Luis his new friends Kurtand Daveand try to get a job at Baskin Robbins but Baskin Robbins always finds out tech is having run by Darren cross hang pencil protégé along with Hank’s daughter hope while Hank is on the world they some old tales of Hank’sand process about his own version of the suit called the yellowjacket only this one is way deadlierand fliesand shoots lasers cross also plans to sell this tech to Hydraand the 10 ringsand just the worst people thanks not too happy about thisand try to think of a plan to stopand even where Scott Lange ever since the very public Vista quick job I think Scott could be a good choice to take on the object stuff before gets into the wrong hands through a series of people think it’s got a tip about as mentioned Rob Casillas to see how good Scott really is what Scott eventually does only to find the entrance to he takes it tries it onand is terrified by the experience Hank is impressed with the skill cc but when Scott tries to return the suit he’s caught by the policeand cost breakdown in jailand tells of his pregnant with cross help is not awfully happy with how things are developing as she was to wear the MS student takedown cross but Hank does a letter because of how her mother died all those years ago so they trained Scott until he becomes great at the shrink tricky stuff even to friendsand called Anthony very good Scott also starts to get romantically involved with hopeand Hank reveals to help our mom diedand she is all well I totally understandand forgive you know dad even though you really could is only sooner I’m an adult you know they’re good now Scott needs advice from an old avenger space to steal the yellowjacket suit is there only to discover that it’s been renovatedand it’s now the new venture space is not by falcon who fights in man is defeated but also impressed by Scott’s abilitiesand less just called Scott’s good fortune that it wasn’t patient who was on patrol that day also by the way crosses going crazy because pen particles mess with the brain after all this Scott goes in to steal the yellowjacket suit but gets caught so him across FIFO while in a helicopterand then a briefcaseand in Scott’s daughter’s room to save his daughterand kill cross Scott go subatomicand saves the day but is temporarily trapped in the quantum realm where Hank’s wife Janet was left however he manages to get outand it’s all good after all this Hank believes that hope is finally ready to become a heroand so gives her the lost barber Scott is back his familyand his daughter Anna’s dosing hopeand never once happy now go back to the moon real quick a place we haven’t been for a while where the go inhumanand potentially the most unlikable character in this entire universeand human arguing about this American flag I am only mentioning this to see him forget that there’s an entire inhuman civilization just living on the moon while all this is happening back on earth the tomb salvaging company shows up in the area were scurvy’s to beand picks up small font Exceland some of this ends up in the hands of Hydra uses it to build a giant robot called ultimo but the manager show up at least those are leftand defeated now were getting into the Netflix world for a while first off Jessica Jones gets new job from Joy Meacham the sister of one Meacham was running red Enterprises will be manipulate it by’s dad was being controlled by the hand I give it a second to sink in again anyway she is Jessica to investigate the people around so she can blackmail them later if need be also Wilson Fisk is stilland by his he I mean jail because he such a big crime boss he start making connections there that Frank Castle has finally gotten all the resources he needs to kill the gangs he thinks were solely responsible for his family’s murder so starts going around doing that in the most brutal way possible starting with the Irish Mafiaand a gang called the dogs of hell is all happening in or near Hells kitchenand that Murdoch starts noticing the stuff so he starts investigating eventually as daredevil in a newand improved suit by the way he comes face to face of the punisher which ends with a bullet to the face that is seriously injured but survives fighting keep fighting that the vigilante stuff while Cassidy is going around the city killing pedophiles in such an entry castle manages to kidnap daredevil Jenny into a chimney where they learn about each other’s pastsand ideologies Castle takes a gun to daredevil’s hand pulse of the criminaland hasn’t had to shoot the criminal or he’s can do it because castle things killing your enemies is the way to go hello I thought a lot of the people daredevil Scott daredevil to try to kill anyway daredevil breaks outand has to fight through some angry bikers Castle unleashes on them later on Frank it’s kidnap by the Irish who brutally tortured him but eventually he gets out with their troubles help explain the situationand himand daredevil cool now but that is arrested that the craziness is now over but nope just now Electra shows up his old girlfriend then ninjaand potentially secret weapon for the handand she’s like a let’s find together because I see her doing that nowand so they do if I think he was a mainly with franking space to Karen what happened to his familyand the bondand become best is so daredeviland Electra are going around fighting the accuserand ultimately come across this giant pit the hand is digging in order to get Dragon bonesand to become immortal that still going on their tax by handand just until state shows up to save the day meanwhile on the lower side of things the punisher trial happensand during that Frank saw like an Angus into jail where he meets Wilson Fisk Fisk is like Frank nothings working everything but my biggest rival this person helped kill your family soand Frank Sykes say no more so he takes a that guy that this double crossesand try seven killed by Frank is just too good for that so Fisk lets them goand Frank tells Fisk to kill him when if he sees them again Frank it’s a geland mean wild animals like snow but again then ninja he thought he go before was brought back by the hand also their little kids being drained of their blood also for resurrection purposes through similar shenanigans the punisher keeps going around killing guys involved with his family’s murderand I will still have conflicting ideologiesand punish ends up killing an old Marine buddy of his Electra stick have a falling outand cystic trust tablets are killedand she didn’t like that so she tries to kill him will saves the dayand sticks kidnapped by the hand so Matt goesand save steak but while he’s doing that nobody reveals that Electra is a black skyand should be leading the hand she almost does but ends up joining their double insteadand the five images together real lasted I’m on right there after a hostage situationand Electra go up against like an infinite supply of hingesand Electra ends up sacrificing yourself for daredevil the punisher also shows up at the last minute to get daredeviland assist which is a pretty awesome moment not to lie no booze killed for real this time by stickand the good guys win except the hand takes Electra’s bodyand uses their Dragon magic to bring her back to life so she can work for them one of the five leaders of the hand the main one Alexandra comes to oversee her resurrection fog equatesand hours for Hogarth from Jessica Jones reveals he’s daredevil to Karenand the punisher goes off to kill everyone was involved with his family’s murder micro also wants answers about the whole Cerberus thing as a goes into Frank’s houseand puts the disk there with the video on it Castle’s unit in Afghanistan tortureand killing that innocent guy which Frank findsand takes with them tiny little break from the granite stuff here a witch just straight up which shows up in Londonand steals a magical artifact called the dark scepter however long case aliasand more masters of the Mystic arts show upand stop her a reminder that there’s magic in this world back to the streets now the gauge is now working at Pops barbershopand I know people disagree on what years these Netflix shows in particular take placeand they are confusing but based on the research I did this seems to check out anyway Luke also works of the barand one evening because he such a player he starts floating with detective Misty Knight the club Lucas working is also my cottonmouth now is a big shot crime boss’s cousin Mariah is a City Councilmanand is also pretty shady just more low key than enough strike is a hammer check from Justin Hammer for some good money but the operation goes wrong look secret half brother Willa striker is also involved here at the highest level is a big criminal now is now called diamondbackand is cottonmouth’s boss basicallyand so he sends in his body shades to make sure everything is running smoothly godmother still cool because these be friends back in the day but because the guy because the deal to go wrong is involved with pop one of cotton’s goons goes against disordersand shoots at the barbershop killing pop through this link in contrast to fightingand looks all like I really care for but not my radar so stop doing illegal stuffand calmness like know so we can start messing up his operation Luke also teams up with Claire Temple daredevil hotel buffet crimeand start a romance energy gets his hands on some bullets I can actually penetrate Luke’s impenetrable scan forand use them thoughand up having an argumentand so she murders him with a mic standand because the new big crime boss with shades help diamondback decides to team up with their setting out a plan to run the crime will do Harlem well Mariah does all the boring political stuff diamondback also shoots a cage twice with those magic bulletsand reveals that he’s actually his brother Claire takes her to the doctor who originated the experiment on themand they send an asset or boiling water something painfuland basically he’s restored to full strength while diamondbackand Mariah are running like a spear campaign against the cage to turn the people filed against them they do this through politicsand super shock loves Lucas backand FaceTime back in the police eventually diamondback shows up in a terrible super suitand even the punch each other for a bit is the end against diamondback partly with helping New York Spiderman style despite all his heroicsand proving himself a good guide to the policeand the people Harlem Lucasand back to prison because been discovered as Carl Lucas back in the day with your call despite being innocent broke out of prisonand so still needs to service time however one of Luke’s barbershop friends is a file that proves his innocence so he’s getting out soon also diamondback is taking them but I doctor who did this experienceand Luke so he’ll probably have some modifications the next time we see them there is a little bummed out that Luke is in jailand that they can’t get a cup of coffee for a while but she keeps itself occupied by starting martial arts training with help from Colleen way that martial artist to statically buy land but doesn’t really know that the hand is evil a bunch of little stuff happens here now firstly that kid who Iron Man said a while back Peter Parker is bitten by a radioactive spider which gives in special abilities like superstrength the ability to climb the wallsand having a dead uncle because he’s a genius kid he also designs web shooters that shoot superstrong webs also because he’s a good kid he realizes if you help people using his new powers he’s responsible for one bad stuff happens so he designs a pajama looking costume takes a living Spidermanand starts fighting little crimes in Queens now over with the Masters of the Mystic arts page 1and Margot find a group called the Dragon Raiders just FYI also falcon is still pretty impressed by thatand I guys a while back I think she could be a valuable asset to the team so he finds a way to contact with them through Luis about potentially joining the avengers Scots like well I cannot stay with my daughter right now but if you really need me yes give me a call we had about the shield team in a while but they’re still doing stuff around these husband Andrew turned into an inhuman call mile he did that is now a giant monster whose sole purpose really is to hunt other humans with humans popping up around the world now shields main mission objective is protecting in humansand training them is made harder because the government treats a group called the ATC you which is designed to track down superpowered people like humansand take them then basically they’re designed to replace yield now that shield has had to go underground in the ATC you is this guy called Malik once again is a big secret Hydra guy said he thought we were done with Hydra you were sorely mistaken the reason this ATC you exists is so Hydra can get a hold of all these in humansand use them you guessed it to make a super soldier army is not getting that seriously 99 of Hydra’s plans so shield in the ATC are fighting for to try to get Simmons off at alien planet which eventually doesand what is still working on rebuilding Hydra I guess Marilyn Stucker’s weightless cool son Werner to join him in a nutshell the main thing is shield us to start up a team of humans the inhuman hunting monster is out there going after them thing of lash is like a less strong or cool version of the book he changes in this monster at different times Olson is asking pretty close to one of the higher ups at the ATC you who isn’t actually evil but then worksheets are in the throat cycles is like I just have to crush discussed just Hydra also wants to get to the matter because they want to bring Benjamin back because they think will be a big secret weapon for them so word fits in Colson end up on an alien planetand cousins like mandatory wordand he crushes Ward’s chest with his robot handand then goes back to think that’s the end of Ward but then the superpowerful clinical human eye possesses corpseand then makes its way back to earth I was now leading Hydra through Ward’s bodyand he’s observing people for strengthand you know typical evil villain stuff so that any rent is still in and now going to basket CCI festand that’s what the iron fist does ever he starts missing homeand gets bored because he’s kind of a spoiled brat so just ramp runs away when the pass is open his eyes to go back to New York to take packs company because that’s I think it works because he’s also kind of a thundering dumbass doesn’t work focuses old friends join Ward Meacham if it were just go with it think is a crazy homeless person understandably wards think that that Harold is still kind of running the company while being controlled by the hand which he started to get kinda sick of becomes friends with Colleen at the dojo he also meets Claire Temple bananas put in a mental hospital he breaks out there with the power of the iron fist stocking 30 with Colleenand Bruce’s friends that it actually is an is coming back with the help of Jerry Hogarth he kinda sucks a business though because he’s been living among city in another dimension for the past decade ends of meeting Harold whose IK we should work together can sometimes take a controlling me so you can go kill themand I like gathers the main purpose in life I had to hand them gal the hand is still selling heroinand Denny’s unhappy about that science of beating herand agreeing to a series of challenges the loser has to pack upand get out of the city anyways but Manga breaks the promise but she’s got ancient society superpowers so there’s not much you can do about it Danny keeps consistently sucking a ring’s company so he’s married now by the board along with the Meacham’s words also super pissed at is that Harold is he took all of his money so he tells Harold bio comes back thanks to the hand Danny Colleenand Claire go to Chinaand take them gal realizes that Ward killed him so he frames them for drug possessionand so Ward gets locked up in the asylum Harold of its joy to be his new number two Danny also made potato Colleen so teacher was also secretly when the 5 m of the handand find out about thisand is in the fan now this guy called divers who isn’t that Dallas is days old friend from and he shows up to help Dannyand Colleen Joyce into saying that the hand probably his neck in the end after helping Dallas is like take the path to come on is open right nowand you’re supposed regarding it what the hell manand I was like well you know is boringand decides to team up with Haroldand joy to take on handand the Kudo but the kudos now working with wordand long story short is defeated but runs away Dallas is not a Danny but they work it out kind of data gets frame for drug stuffand goes in the runand Harold is the bag on the endand tries to take over the company Danny Lord in the big final battle team up kill Haroldand burn his corpse so he will come back to life now Ward is running the companyand Dallas teams of joyand maybe not out to kill Danny down the lineand then sends a team led by lecture to come on which again has no iron fist protecting it they kill a bunch of the monks there it’s pretty brutal the entrance is then close for safety so no one knows when it’ll open up again because back to check out the passand find the city is goneand some abilityand he realizes he probably should state to protect it also Luke Cage sends Claire letter from prison because there still thing overand cover Taj at this point Casillas is starting to get kinda pissed with Angel on it if you like his training isn’t getting him what he wants to start having some friction with most the Masters there also finds out that the angel on his drawing power from the dark dimension which he thinks is pretty have a critical because he must use the dark dimension to see his dead family againand to gain immortality but the angeland told him no because a bunch of people that the ancient one is withholding informationand they should bring tomato from the dark dimension to earth to golf it in eternity forms to rise up against the ancient one they break into the libraryand cover tiesand steal some pages from the ageless book about the dark dimension one tries to stop them but they get away in the end one point Rogers well the shielding goes to Mexicoand meets the human called yo yo who has superspeed who eventually joins the ranksand eventually becomes next girlfriend also Bobby Hunter leave the team because they were so staff spent off but that didn’t happen somewhere venturesand Sue Shield has an inhuman team but highest the inhuman Hydra God takes control of Daisy’s mind because he can do thatand turns against the team just as a vision of the future where one of them diesand other important detail there’s this group called the watchdogs which is basically inhuman racist who are going around killing humans as they plan by the way is to make every human in the worldand in human goes against Dr Ratcliff a scientist who he thinks can help them re create the original Cree experiment that native humans in the first place he realizes he needs actual Cree blood to do it so he sends a signal to the Creed to get some to come downand they do in a fight ensues they’re both taken out but also rendered useless however some Cree blood from daisies used from when she was saved without original Cree corpse long story doesn’t really matter experience go half rate asand it turns peopleand these gross disfigured mindless things meanwhile Scott laying after successfully cross job is still training is at man with Hankand hope that at some point here he upgrade to suitand test out new tech that allows him to become giant he tries it onceand passes out but hey it works Peter is continuing to Spiderman around the city at one point stopping a car crashand getting caught on camera the footage is uploaded to YouTubeand catches the eye of Tony Stark who keeps it in his watch later until he really needs it he’s got bigger stuff to think about right now is right around this point people are starting to take more notice of how much damage the superheroes have actually caused in their superheroand the guy who’s all over this is unsurprisingly general Ross from the days he needs of the presidentand his appointed Secretary of Stateand start talking about how they can keep the stuff moreand check the start of on the ideas for the Segovia cords basically a way of regulating superheroes with more oversight by forcing them to register with the government while this is happening Frank Castle continues his killing spree of people who were involved in this family’s murder going from truck murder to sniper murder to the bathroom murder is getting what he thinks is all them in a decides to move all of his life is the whole point the punisher was to avenge his family so that’s done now or so he thinks also after lectures not has stopping daredevil for a few months now because he’s just too sad things are not bad though foggy Nelson get some helpand I got in the barbershopand clears the cages nameand Lucas at a prison loop is up with Claireand they get that coffee they’d wanted Jessica Jones comes across lecture during one of her cases is still doing whatever the hand once rememberand objective Dragon bones under New York immortality the only problem is those Dragon bones are essential foundations for the city so the removal of them is causing serious earthquakesand could eventually to the whole city collapsing is also hiring a bunch of Harlem kids to help them kill and or clean up the mess is left behind by their enemies cages about this news like I got to protect the people of Harlemand Danny Randy is about this is like I gotta take a hand saw this lease to them crossing pathsand having a bit of a fight every day become friends because of their mutual friend Claire through fortuitous circumstances Jessica’s tracking guy connected to the handand that Murdoch ends up being her lawyerand also gets interested in the case so all four of them end up at the hands buildingand start fighting their ninjas electro sent into daredevil surprise but doesn’t remember him remind you of anyone but they all managed to get out of thereand go hide out in a Chinese restaurant where the become more acquainted state gets kidnapped by the hand but gets out of there by cutting off his own hand get itand goes to talk to the team Alexandraand had followed to see Alexandraand the hand is a whole knee iron fist alive because his iron fist is the key to open the gate to the sweet sweet Dragon bones if I happens electro starts remember who she isand that offenders get their hands on one of the hands main leaders also have their superhero team name is the defenders this guy is not of much help thoughand so stick to set off is not happy about this because they’re running out of there immortality juice the defender starting though because they’re like if the hand need you Danny we should probably had your wayand then he does what he does bestand is a whiny baby so they’ll punch him for a whileand then time however stickand typical stick fashion thinks that he might in the world so I’m getting kill him but lecture shows upand kill stickand tasty on fist to the hand she also kills Alexandra as she wants to be in charge I guess Jessica Jones find out more about that whole get it will found a while back with hands digging for Dragon bones after Lilith over the police that offenders minus Danny fight the hand plus the got Colleen to help Danny accidentally opens the gates of the Dragon bones because of course he doesand other defenders are fighting to hand in a lecture while also trying to block building so the hand can destroy New York the kudos guild Misty Knight loses an armand the offenders whenand get out of there butback to talk to Bucky I mean Electra yesterday heard the building collapses on the master kissingand that he saved by some nuns think look that they savedand that doesn’t actually die thank God it’s time to introduce another very important character very late in the game a Stephen strange is an amazing surgeon but he’s also super arrogantand kind of addict’s ex girlfriend also works with him called Rachel McAdams one day he’s drivingand textingand he crashes his car crushing his amazing surgeon hands in his life because he can’t be an awesome surgeon anymoreand he somehow even more awful to sex than usual really his life is just falling apart he starts to find ways to heal himself however ridiculous eventually he comes across Jonathan born the guy who trained with the ancient oneand was cured so strange has two Taj is there more to one of the masters takes into the ancient one because of all the crazy ultra dimensions there are at least the trip used ones he’s like help me learnand she’s like no your grossand sad in a terrible person but he pleadsand stays her door so she reluctantly changes her mind so strange that’s learning how to control the Mystic artsand other dimensionsand make hologram shieldsand whatnot with the help of Moto the ancient oneand the bookkeeper Wong who he befriends is about the different symptomsand how they protect worldand trains for several months along the way he also stumbles upon the times done sitting in a handy necklace the INI tomato figures out how to been time with it more unwanted like you don’t do that you could get stuck in a time loop anyway at one point you stuck to Mount Everest restraining just while all this other stuff is happening remember Stephen strange is getting great a magic this whole time so U ventures all trained upand going on missions also still looking for Bucky the next hydrogen in Lagosand think it might finally be Bucky but as they get there they realize it’s actually Brock Romo crossbones who understoodand is planning on suicide lineup himselfand Capt. From the capital nation to be only the abandoned government found wanting to you is down for lack of probably racial stories are for slavery would like we enjoyed helping our countries pushed the right from overcorrection Levi Roberts reports be noticeable degree for nearly a century was to story one of America’s years and will grow as he never heard her needs needs degree beating my hair as See Other related products: God Made Scots A Wee Bit Better T-Shirt
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supercasey · 4 years
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TMA Child Avatars AU
Alright, so ever since I listened to the episode about Agnes’s origins, I keep thinking about an AU where a bunch of the other Entities, after realizing that it’s at least possible to create an avatar from birth, perform their own rituals and make a bunch of the future Archives gang. This AU has a lot of potential for angst, but since TMA is sad enough, I’ll probably mostly focus on the world building and fluffy/funny stuff (‘cus god knows I’m a slut for that shit).
To all my followers, I’m sorry I keep making kid AUs; I got told in like 2015 or so that I sucked at writing kids and it’s Never Left My Mind, so now I always wanna make stupid AUs in order to practice writing kids better (I also have an original story I wanna write soon with a ten year old as the main character, so yeah, I need all the practice I can get).
Anyways, here’s all I’ve got on the AU this far (explanation under the cut; a very long post is up ahead):
Character Backstories
Jonathan “Jon” Sims - Apprentice Archivist of the Eye
Jon is a very complicated story, at least from everyone outside of the Eye’s gaze. It was Elias’s idea to create him, and were it not for Gertrude getting lucky, no one but Elias, Peter Lukas, and Simon Fairchild would have ever known that Jon existed until he was ready to become the next archivist. Gertrude found out by pure chance when she accepted a live statement from one very frightened Delores Sims, who told the archivist about how a strange man had been stalking her ever since she found out she was pregnant. Out of completely nowhere, her husband died a month after she conceived, and even though it looked like an accident, Delores swore that she saw an arm surrounded by fog push him down the stairs. Things only grew worse for her over the next few weeks, as in the midst of her grieving her dead husband, Delores began seeing green, glowing irises out of the corners of her eyes, watching her every move as she lived her life, which was followed by the stalker in question appearing constantly in her dreams, always watching her from afar, an unpleasant and frankly unnerving grin on his face the entire time.
Suspicious, and finding the description of the stalker all too familiar by the end of the statement, Gertrude investigated Delores’s claims on her own time, going so far as to break into Elias’s office in order to dig up more information on whatever he was up to. No matter what her theories may have been, none of them were anything like what she found in his letters to his associates. Somehow, Elias had conspired alongside the Lukas and Fairchild families to find their heirs/avatars together, and Elias was the last person to acquire one of his own. Gertrude was unsure of the details at the time (and she still unfortunately is), but from what she could gather, the child growing in Delores Sims’ body was somehow touched by the Eye because of something Elias had done, and they would be born with the perfect framework to have the powers that an archivist learns over several years of training at birth! With no time to lose, Gertrude got back into contact with Delores, and after much discussion between the two women, she convinced Delores to come to her apartment when she eventually went into labor, and to give Gertrude the baby after they were born so that she could keep them safe from Elias.
The birth was meant to be done in secret, but the second the first contraction occurred, there was a knock on Gertrude’s door, Elias waiting for her on the other side with an unhappy grimace on his face. He came armed with a gun, and threatened to murder Gertrude if she didn’t allow him to claim the child as his own. Aware she still had many rituals to stop in the near future, and that none of her assistants were experienced enough to stop them by themselves, Gertrude reluctantly agreed to let him inside, but on one condition; the child had to be shared between them. Elias was abrasive to the idea of course, but he eventually complied with his archivist’s demands, not wanting to replace her so early on in her career. The sight of her stalker coming into the bedroom to watch her give birth unfortunately sent Delores into a panic attack while she was still very much in labor, making the rest of the birth a rather dangerous thing, but the child survived, leaving his mother terrified and shaking. Gertrude had planned on letting her go on her merry way after the baby was born, but Elias wasn’t taking any chances, and he shot her as soon as he deemed it safe to.
Since then, Gertrude and Elias have had dual custody of Jonathan- the name was Gertrude’s idea, on the grounds that it was a nice, proper name for a young man- trading him back and forth every other week. It’s been hard, especially with the adults he calls his parents wanting to kill each other, but Jon’s oblivious to most of the fighting right now, assuming his folks are just going through a messy divorce.
Martin Blackwood-Lukas - Adoptive Son of Peter Lukas
Peter ended up running very behind in the whole child avatar thing (a first for his family, something Simon reminds him of on a daily basis), and he really struggled with creating a baby avatar that would actually be able to “keep up” with the other young messiahs that were coming to be. Eventually he realized that his family’s usual method would take too long, so out of desperation he went to Elias and Simon for help. It was Simon’s idea that worked; he suggested that since the normal methods weren’t working, and kids usually don’t become lonely until they’re older, that Peter should try his own summoning ritual like the Lightless Flame did with Agnes. Peter was hesitant at first, but he gave in quickly, sacrificing a number of lonely souls to his entity in a well-timed manner, until finally, he found a small, swaddled baby in the midst of the fog; a supposed gift from the Lonely for his loyalty.
Peter was delighted by this discovery, and so were his colleagues, the men relieved that their hard work had actually paid off for once. After naming the little boy Martin- it was Elias’s idea, though he didn’t have much of an exact reason for the name, simply claiming that it “suited” the child- and before long, Peter began raising his newfound son much the same as he was; in almost total isolation, save for a variety of rotating nannies and caregivers. Unfortunately for Peter, this went horribly wrong almost as soon as he got started, as by the time that Martin was six months old he had accidentally forced five different nannies into the fog out of fear of them leaving like the ones before them had. With no other options available, and being able to actually leave the fog if Martin threw anymore fits, Peter was forced to raise his son by hand, which again went wrong, but for very different reasons, as to his shock, he became quite attached to his adopted child.
This evolved into Peter having doubt of the Lonely for the first time in his life, but he refused to acknowledge it for as long as he could. But he was finally forced to when, after Martin turned five years old, the rest of the Lukas family insisted on performing a test on the child to see how well Martin could handle the fog without any guidance. He had been inside the fog before of course, with Peter holding his hand or carrying him through the dense chill, but the family wanted to isolate Martin inside for a full month. This secretly scared Peter like nothing else ever had, but out of fear of what his family might think, he didn’t say anything at the time, simply watching from afar as his son was dragged into the fog and left to fend for himself. The ritual went wrong within the first week, Martin having a full-scale breakdown and nearly hyperventilating to death, and yet the family kept him in there for another week before the intervention.
The results of the test of course disappointed the other members of the Lukas family, who suggested that they simply leave Martin to disappear into the fog and look for a new, more sufficient messiah to serve their god. The news hit Peter incredibly hard, and despite his previous inhibitions and fear, he knew he couldn’t let the Lonely consume his one and only son. So, without telling anyone of what he was up to, he ventured into the fog, rescued Martin, and fled to live with his estranged ex-husband the Magnus Institute. Since then he’s been living with Elias at his house and avoiding his family at all costs, all while young Martin has grown up alongside the other entity kids and has struggled to figure out his role in everything, but at least he has his dad on his side through all of this.
Sasha James - Chosen Daughter of the Mother of Puppets
(Note: I headcanon the Mother of Puppets as a giant spider, so that’s how I’m writing her… sorry if this is inaccurate, but I’m only on MAG 152, y’all. Besides, I think this is cool af.)
Sasha was very much planned, even more so than Agnes was so many years beforehand. The Mother of Puppets had her minions gather hundreds upon hundreds of orphaned infants and bring them to her nest. She swaddled each every one in her webbing and kept them like this for several weeks, allowing them time to adjust to the webbing and adapt. Unfortunately, most of these children weren’t cut out for the Web’s influence, and while a few indeed held their adoptive mother’s mark, almost none of them were marked deep enough to become a fully realized avatar. The unsuccessful batches were subsequently sent off to orphanages across the world and replaced with new babies, this process repeating for years and years, until finally, Sasha was born. There was nothing special about her parents, yet she not only bore The Web’s mark, she seemed to have it embedded into her very soul. This, of course, was met with celebration from the Web, and plans were quickly made as to how to raise her moving forward, as no one wanted Sasha to end up like Agnes did.
Annabelle Cane ended up being the one chosen to home Sasha for the first few years of her childhood, and she was dutiful in her new, rather honorable role, as she not only cared for the child well, but she treated Sasha as her own, though she was careful to be seen more as an older sister than a mother to the girl; that role was, of course, reserved for Sasha’s real mother. When Sasha finally turned five, the Mother of Puppets announced further plans for the young avatar, calling on Annabelle to take Sasha to the Magnus Institute and give her to one of their hidden agents there so that she could learn more about how the Web uses it’s influence over other entities. This worried Annabelle, who wanted to keep the child near her and prove that she was the most loyal of the mother’s children, but she would never disobey a direct order from the being that had given her life such meaning. So, rather reluctantly, Annabelle gave Sasha to another member of the Web, watching from the shadows as this unworthy follower took the blessed daughter into the institute for further training.
This went wrong within only a few months. Gertrude ended up finding out who the Web’s spy in the institute was, as she had suspected that another entity was trying to control her from the shadows, and after disposing of the threat and searching their home for anything useful that she could use against the Web, she found Sasha. The archivist was tempted to kill the supernatural child on sight, but while she can murder her assistants and enemies without much remorse, on the grounds that it’s always for the greater good, killing a child is a very different story. So she took Sasha in, raising the Web’s child as her own alongside the Eye’s own prodigy Jon, all while trying to help Sasha control her slowly budding powers. The Mother of Puppets has been trying to get Sasha back ever since, enraged that the child is so close to her yet just out of reach, but with no luck, though there’s no telling how long that will last.
Timothy & Daniel Stoker - Dancer and Future Ringmaster of the Stranger
Both Tim and Danny are chosen ones of the Stranger, created as soon as their god had gained enough spare power to create them. Tim was born first, being the Stranger’s first attempt at birthing an avatar that might be powerful enough to help lead the Unknowing, but Gertrude interrupted midway through the ritual. By some miracle, Tim survived the ordeal, but he was left “incomplete” to some degree, leaving him simply marked and not fully connected to the Stranger. The entity’s followers ended up keeping him around though, both because Nikola Orsinov was too fascinated by the newborn baby to give him up, and because his parents wanted him to survive, but it was agreed that another attempt would be made, this time with more planning involved. Four years later, Danny was born, and with Gertrude too preoccupied to intervene this time around (and because she didn’t realize they’d try again so soon), the ritual went much better and created a far more suitable vessel for the Stranger’s powers.
After that, Tim and Danny’s parents died, fully succumbing to the Stranger’s transformation and leaving them orphaned. Not that their presence was strictly necessary after the kids were born, as Nikola Orsinov was more than happy to take over in most of the child rearing, genuinely growing quite fond of the two boys, particularly Tim, as despite his lack of supernatural abilities, she found him to be rather endearing, which is probably the closest she can get to genuinely caring about someone. Both brothers were raised more or less the same way, save for Danny being showered with more praise and being trained as a future ringmaster while Tim was mostly ignored and trained to be a dancer. Some followers of the Stranger feared that Tim might harbor resentment towards his little brother and try to kill him someday, but to their surprise, Tim only grew more protective of him over the years, swearing to keep Danny safe as he grew up to fulfill his destiny and help their family mold the world in their image.
Eventually though, when Tim was eleven and Danny was seven, Tim realized what was actually happening behind the scenes, and not wanting his brother to risk being sacrificed for the world’s destruction, he told Danny everything, leading to the young messiah to run away with him to London (they were raised primarily in Russia, but moved with the circus a lot, and were in France at the time that they finally ran away). There, Tim found the infamous Gertrude Robinson, who he knew had the power to stop the Unknowing, as she had once saved him from becoming the Stranger’s avatar, and inadvertently led him to having a little brother. Tim and Danny have since moved in with Michael, and they visit the Magnus Institute whenever they get the chance, as both boys have grown to become friends with the other avatar kids. You’d think that the Stranger’s followers would be furious about all of this- don’t worry, many of their acolytes are- but Nikola has laughed it off entirely and keeps insisting that the boys are just having a “sleepover” or are away at “summer camp” (in fucking January, apparently).
Melanie King - Cadet of the Slaughter
Honestly, the Slaughter wasn’t as into the whole “let’s make an avatar from scratch!” thing that the other entities’ followers were doing, but hey, sometimes child avatars just kinda wind up on your doorstep, ya know? Melanie ended up being found at about four years old, sobbing on her hands and knees outside of a burning hospital and calling for her mommy and daddy to come back to her, but no one answered her cries, and she was left to weep for quite some time before someone found her. The hospital, you see, had been overrun by the Corruption and promptly burned to the ground by the Desolation, neither of which bothered to stick around for some worthless child. Melanie’s parents were both inside when the entities clashed, leaving her orphaned and scared, and while Alfred Grifter, who had been on his way to a show with his bandmates at the time that he found her, had intended on just leaving her be, he saw the overwhelming rage and blood-lust in her crying eyes, and realized in that moment that she was touched by the urge to kill, just like he was.
Melanie was promptly taken in by Alfred Grifter and the band, who honestly had no idea what the hell they were doing. On one hand, Alfred knew that keeping a kid around was unbelievably dangerous for all parties involved, but on the other, he really didn’t want to leave Melanie all by herself, for fear of what she might do if left without any guidance from “people” who knew what she was going through, at least to some degree. That isn’t to say Alfred and his bandmates were all that great at raising her- they mostly just brought her to gigs and let her play on her Gameboy backstage while they started massacres- but they did at least try to give her somewhat of a home. It wasn’t until five years into this that some other Slaughter followers found out about Melanie’s existence, to which they told Alfred to give her to them for proper training. Knowing her life would be horrible with them, Alfred gave his ward a backpack full of everything she ever owned, a kid sized guitar, her Gameboy, and sent her on the run.
Melanie was scared out of her mind at first, having grown to see Alfred and his bandmates as her new family; she had already lost her parents, so why did she have to lose the band, too!? But there were no other options, she had to run, so she did just that, attacking any adult who tried to stop her along the way. She didn’t actually know about the Magnus Institute when she made her way to London, and Alfred didn’t tell her to go there or anything, but she ended up being spotted by Adelard Dekker while she was looking for a place to stay in the area. Seeing that Melanie was an avatar of some kind, Adelard managed to convince her that he was safe, and to let him take her to someone that could help her. He brought Melanie straight to Gertrude Robinson, who agreed to house the child since Adelard couldn’t, though she ended up letting one of her unofficial assistants (*cough* Gerry *cough*) take her to live in his flat so she wouldn’t be as easy for Elias to monitor/get ahold of.
Julia Montauk & Alice “Daisy” Tonner - Children of the Hunt
(Watch as I fuck with timelines so badly that the people who keep track of this shit will order a hit on me) The Hunt found both of their avatars in strikingly similar yet different ways; Julia was first, born from the womb of another entity’s follower, but bound for so much more than anything the Dark could give her. Years after her destined birth, Julia’s mother was viciously murdered by the People’s Church when she was just five years old, her father Robert Montauk going down the path of becoming a fully-fledged Hunter, and in the process he unknowingly marked Julia with his newfound entity, which in turn unlocked an unprecedented potential inside of her, not that it was fully realized until another tragedy struck her. This next tragedy, unfortunately, claimed Julia’s father. Mr. Pitch was mistakenly summoned, and in it’s rage, it destroyed Robert while he was in the midst of a sacrifice. The monster would’ve gotten Julia next, had it not been for the intervention of a nearby Hunter.
Trevor Herbert honestly didn’t mean to get involved, but when he witnessed a little girl screaming as she ran out of a house, a giant mass of darkness chasing after her, and no one willing to so much as call the damn cops, he knew he had to rescue the poor kid. In a flash he ran over, picked Julia up, and ran away with her to safety, managing to get her in his car (which he stole, but that’s not important) and drive as far away from her old home as possible. In the aftermath, Trevor had no idea what to do with Julia, since he had never actually wanted any kids of his own, but… well, he ain’t heartless, and that monster was still out there somewhere, just waiting to sink it’s cursed teeth into this young child’s flesh. Trevor ended up keeping her after that, becoming her adoptive father as he traveled with her around the UK, slowly but surely training her to hunt the same monsters that claimed her beloved parents.
You’d think that would be the end of Trevor Herbert adopting little girls marked by the Hunt, but nope, he just can’t catch a fucking break! He found Daisy about a year later, when Julia was eight and becoming more adjusted to her new lifestyle. Again, Trevor wasn’t really planning on going on any hunts at the time that this happened, he was just traveling through the area, but upon finding a bloodied up, terrified little girl being chased by a boy who looked possessed… well, it wasn’t like Julia wasn’t lonely, and again, Trevor isn’t heartless, and he sure as hell can’t let things go. So yeah, he kidnapped another child touched by the Hunt, even though this one actually had a living parent, and once again he took to traveling the UK with his adoptive daughters, secretly reveling in his new role as a father. Daisy, while scared at first, quickly grew fond of her new family, and even fonder of her new nickname after Trevor patched up her wounds, and noticed a flower-shaped scar on her back, prompting him to start affectionately calling her Daisy.
Yep, things were going pretty good for the family of three, but of course, shit eventually caught up with Trevor, not that he thought he could avoid it forever.
The police eventually caught wind of “Trevor the Tramp” traveling with two little girls who looked an awful lot like the missing thirteen and ten year olds Julia Montauk and Alice Tonner, and in his desperation to keep from getting arrested and having his children taken away, Trevor fled to downtown London in order to lie low for awhile and raise his daughters in relative peace, only ever going out for food runs and the occasional hunt. It was through one of these hunts that he ended up meeting Gerard Keay, the two of them chasing after the same book that had been summoning shadow people to wreck havoc on the city, and after a bit of back and forth banter over the campfire that was once a Leitner, Gerry convinced Trevor to move in with him so that the girls and him would be safer and actually have a home. Although he was hesitant to accept an offer he thought was too good to be true (also, he’s not gonna lie, he thought Gerry was a vampire when they met), Trevor agreed and moved into Gerry’s flat with his daughters, and has since helped Gertrude and her assistants with monster hunts.
Oliver Banks & Georgie Barker - Fetchlings of The End
Georgie and Oliver are an odd story, with the latter of the two having gained his powers as a mere toddler, being plagued with horrible, ghastly dreams that would keep him awake through the night, leaving him absolutely haggard by morning. His father tried everything to help Oliver through this torment- counseling, medication, bedtime rituals- but nothing worked, and before long, Oliver’s beloved father was claimed by his nightmares, dying of a heart attack that he couldn’t stop. Alone and misunderstood by everyone who tried to raise him, Oliver ran away countless times, coming across Georgie during his last attempt. He found the little girl to also be on the run for similar reasons, but unlike him, she wasn’t the least bit afraid. She wasn’t exactly happy, but she wasn’t a bawling mess like he was. Together, the two of them struggled to survive, relying on kindhearted drifters for support while they avoided the police until, at long last, something took pity on them, that something being a large, fat tabby cat.
As it were, the tabby cat- dubbed The Admiral by Georgie- wasn’t a normal cat in the slightest, and although it couldn’t speak, it’s intentions were clear; it was there to help these lost, orphaned children. Oliver was skeptical of course, but Georgie wasn’t about to look a gift cat in the mouth, so Oliver reluctantly followed the cat and his little sister to an apartment building, and from there, into an unoccupied flat. Since then, the two children have been living with Admiral in that very same flat, the cat providing them with a fully stocked fridge, warm beds, and running water. It’s still unclear what the Admiral is, but he seems kind enough, and is obviously quite protective of his newfound children, accompanying them on their outings and occasional visits to the institute.
Michael Crew - Prodigy of The Vast
Out of all avatars to be raising children for their entity, Simon Fairchild absolutely has had the most fun with it all, treating it almost like a fun game or pastime. He was the first (save for the Lightless Flame having Agnes, of course) to “create” an avatar child, and from minute one he was overjoyed with the results. A few years after news broke of Agnes’ origins, and the followers of other entities were all arguing over whether or not to follow suit, Simon didn’t bother waiting for anyone’s input or permission, simply throwing himself into the deep end and praying he could make his plan work. Seemingly overnight, Simon somehow acquired a baby later identified as the missing and presumably dead infant Michael Crew, who he referred to as Mike when he finally introduced him to his friends/associates. He still hasn’t told anyone how he even got the kid- not even Peter or Elias know what he did!- but by some means, he illegally adopted Mike and took to raising the kid like a duck takes to water; a bit unsure at first, but growing to love it fast!
When Mike was introduced to the rest of the entity followers community, many were shocked (excuse the pun) to see that the infant had a long, frightening Lichtenberg scar running down his right arm, his back, and his right leg, the scars glowing a bright blue whenever he took to the sky or, as Elias learned the hard way after accidentally annoying Mike by bouncing him on his knee for too long when he was a toddler, used his powers to electrocute people. Even with his child being such an oddity, even among other avatars, Simon took it all in stride, proudly bragging about Mike to anyone who would listen, most of these people being victims of the Vast, who were hardly able to hear Simon’s excited rambling over their own shrieks of terror. He usually also insisted on bringing Mike with him, even when he was a mere infant, though he at least kept the kid in a tight harness on his chest. In all honesty, Simon being such an excited parent was what kick-started a lot of other avatars to start acquiring their own child avatars, as he made it look so easy!
However, things weren’t always perfect, especially on Mike’s end as he grew older. Being the eldest and more or less “firstborn” of this new generation of entity-made avatars put a lot of pressure on him at a very early age, pressure which Simon tried to help him deal with by not acknowledging it, which unfortunately didn’t help in the slightest. Thankfully Mike started to feel less unsure of his place in the world as he reached his teen years, seeing as the younger kids were now getting all the attention and giving him a chance to breathe. Even now that he’s an angsty teenager, Mike loves Simon like a father, referring to him as such without hesitation. This, of course, delights Simon to no end, and makes all his peers low-key high-key jealous of the awesome relationship he has with his son.
Helen Richardson - Droplet of The Spiral
Not much was known about Helen when Michael first found her. After being sent into The Spiral by Gertrude on what he thought to be a suicide mission for the greater good, Michael was half certain he wouldn’t find anything but his end in that place. Instead he found a small, strange toddler where he was meant to find… well, he didn’t actually know what, but certainly not a baby, that’s for sure! With no one watching baby Helen, and therefore making him believe that she had been abandoned by The Spiral’s other creations, Michael had no reservations against scooping her up and taking her back to the physical world with him, where he was met be a very confused Gertrude Robinson. Michael wasn’t exactly keen on killing/abandoning a baby after he got out, so he and Gertrude brought her back to London with them in hopes of finding out more about the odd child. Along the way, it became clear that the baby was gifted with The Spiral’s powers, the giggly toddler continually screwing with reality, though she wasn’t aware she was doing so.
Back home in London, it took another three weeks of research, but Gerry eventually found out more about the child Michael had more or less adopted. Her name was originally Helen Richardson, and her father, a rookie paranormal investigator who had once been marked by The Spiral, was obsessed with the distortion, and was willing to do anything to become more than simply marked by it. He ended up finding a map similar to Gertrude’s, and a few years before she even knew it was possible, the father went into The Spiral and used his own daughter as a vessel for the entity, hoping she would be a good enough sacrifice to earn it’s favor. This of course ended in disaster, with the father “disappearing” while Helen absorbed The Spiral’s power, but seeing as she was so young, it couldn’t manifest properly, even after two and a half years spent trying to “raise her” within the deepest depths of it’s domain.
With research still being done on what to do about the child, and whether or not the team can remove her powers without killing or permanently injuring her in the process, Michael has agreed to take Helen in, secretly delighted to be raising a baby. With the Stoker Brothers already under his roof, Michael has his hands rather full with them and baby Helen, but the boys take her antics in stride, having learned quickly how to deal with the apartment they live in occasionally “growing” some new doors and changing color at random. Luckily for Michael, he has back-up in the forms of Gerry and Gertrude, who occasionally take Helen and the brothers off his hands for him so he can take a break/fix whatever Helen may’ve accidentally broken with her powers.
Character Roles in this AU
(Feel free to add your own OCs/other characters if you wanna do stuff with this AU, I’m just naming characters I know about/remember!)
Avatar Kids: Jonathan “Jon” Sims, Martin Blackwood, Sasha James, Timothy “Tim” Stoker, Daniel “Danny” Stoker, Melanie King, Julia Montauk, Alice “Daisy” Tonner, Oliver Banks, Georgie Barker, Michael “Mike” Crew, and Helen Richardson.
Avatar Kids Semi-Reluctant PTA Group: Elias Bouchard, Gertrude Robinson, Peter Lukas, Gerard “Gerry” Keay, Trevor Herbert, Michael Shelley, and Simon Fairchild.
PTA Allies: Basira Hussain (Daisy’s best friend and the local Normal Child™), Agnes Montague (Everyone’s emergency number for avatar child advice), Alfred Grifter (Just shows up to hang out with Melanie and cause problems on purpose), The Admiral (Guardian to Georgie and Oliver and occasionally the other kids; best babysitter), Adelard Dekker (Comes around the archives sometimes and always brings presents for the kids + assistants), and Rosie (Elias’s assistant and the only sane and sensible adult in this Chili’s tonight).
PTA Enemies: Nikola Orsinov (Tim and Danny’s “Mom” who keeps kidnapping Jon on accident), Annabelle Cane (Hates the institute and wants Sasha back), Jude Perry (Hates the kids but loves Agnes; worst babysitter),  and Jared Hopworth (Nightmare flesh man that needs to fuck off; mediocre but funny babysitter).
Character Descriptions
(Feel free to tweak the physical designs if you want; I’m just going off my own headcanons, and seeing as my drawing skills are pretty shit, it’s not like I’m gonna be doing much art for this outside of writing. So yeah, go off with your own headcanons if you want to!)
Full Name: Jonathan “Jon” Sims-Bouchard-Robinson Age: 7 Birthday: October 26th (Scorpio) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The Eye, Marked by Literally Fucking Everything Guardian(s): Alexander Sims (Biological Father - Deceased), Delores Sims (Biological Mother - Deceased), Gertrude Robinson (Adoptive Mother - Current), Elias Bouchard (Adoptive Father - Current) Appearance: African heritage with dark brown skin, worryingly short for his age, dark brown eyes that glow bright green when he’s using his powers, long black hair with a few green and grey hairbands tied in, constantly “borrows” Martin’s sweaters to wear, occasionally wears skirts but most of the time he wears slacks, constantly looks sleep deprived, has a very intense stare, and occasionally he can be seen carrying his stuffed moth around. Personality: You’d think he’d be a quiet kid, considering his entity, but no, he has Questions and he wants them Answered, goddammit! He wasn’t raised around many kids his age, being home-schooled by Elias and Gertrude all his life, so he struggles to connect with the other avatar kids. Is only close to the S1 gang at first, but he gets closer to everyone else over time. Idolizes Gerry and thinks he’s the coolest guy ever. Appears rather cowardly at a glance, but he’s braver than most people give him credit for. Would die for his friends/family.
Full Name: Martin Blackwood-Lukas Age: 8 Birthday: February 29th (Pisces) ((This one’s for you, Dane)) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The Lonely, Marked by The Eye Guardian(s): William Blackwood (Biological Father - Uninvolved), Edna Blackwood (Biological Mother - Uninvolved), Peter Lukas (Adoptive Father - Current) Appearance: Polish heritage and pale as a fucking ghost, average height for his age but growing fast, pretty chubby, covered head to toe in little red freckles, short and curly red hair, bright brown eyes, wears big round glasses, wears sweaters and comfy trousers almost 24/7, carries a backpack full of “emergency tools” wherever he goes, usually has a cup of tea in-hand, and sometimes wears a small sailor hat that Peter gave him. Personality: Incredibly reserved, much like Mike, but he’s been trying to come out of his shell more. He’s “Best Friends Forever” with Jon, and gets along well with Tim and Sasha as well. Fears Melanie and Daisy. He likes hanging out with the other kids, but he often gets talked over, leading him to withdraw for awhile if it’s bad enough. Adores his dad, and is so much braver than anyone knows. Incredibly snarky when he feels like it.
Full Name: Sasha James Age: 10 Birthday: November 18th (Scorpio) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The Web, Marked by The Eye, Marked by The Stranger Guardian(s): Francis James (Biological Father - Deceased), Patrick James (Biological Father - Deceased), Annabelle Cane (Adoptive Mother - Uninvolved), Gertrude Robinson (Adoptive Mother - Current) Appearance: Mixed race heritage of African and Caucasian with dark brown skin, slightly taller than average for her age, long dark brown hair, wears big round glasses, sometimes wears a little make-up if she can get away with it, wears a lot of turtleneck sweaters and long skirts, always has at least one cobweb on her, carries around a stuffed spider that she brings with her to the archives every day, and she wears a headband most of the time. Personality: Easily the most level-headed of the kids, as she’s been raised around paranormal stuff the longest and is rarely bothered by the stranger things that happen. She hates Artifact Storage with a passion, but other than that, she loves exploring the institute and occasionally stealing Gertrude’s laptop to mess with it. Very tech savvy, and even more curious! Incredibly smart, to the point that she can even outclass Gertrude and Gerry with her quick-wittiness.
Full Name: Timothy “Tim” Stoker Age: 12 Birthday: August 3rd (Leo) Entity/Mark(s): Marked by The Stranger, Marked by The Eye Guardian(s): Markus Stoker (Biological Father - Deceased), Olivia Stoker (Biological Mother - Deceased), Nikola Orsinov (Adoptive Mother - Uninvolved), Gerard “Gerry” Keay (Adoptive Guardian - Current) Appearance: Mixed race heritage of Latino and Korean with dark tanned skin, slightly on the taller side for his age, messy/spiky black hair that looks impossible to comb, dark brown eyes, is described as a “handsome young man” by strangers, has a very charming smile, wears a lot of Hawaiian shirts and shorts (even during the winter), needs to wear glasses but he refuses to wear them in the archives out of self-consciousness. Personality: Probably one of the brightest personalities of the avatar kids, Tim comes off as very cool and funny, but underneath all of that he’s rather paranoid, afraid that the circus will come and force his baby brother into becoming a monster. Protective of his little bro and the archive kids, but he still teases them to no end. Smarter than he looks, and isn’t afraid to break his cool guy persona to tell someone off.
Full Name: Daniel “Danny” Stoker Age: 8 Birthday: August 1st (Leo) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The Stranger, Marked by The Eye Guardian(s): Markus Stoker (Biological Father - Deceased), Olivia Stoker (Biological Mother - Deceased), Nikola Orsinov (Adoptive Guardian - Uninvolved), Gerard “Gerry” Keay (Adoptive Guardian - Current) Appearance: Mixed race heritage of Latino and Korean with dark tanned skin, about a head shorter than Tim, somewhat neat black hair that sticks up in odd places, eyes are impressively dark and glassy looking, slight gap between his front teeth, is described as being a “handsome young man” by strangers, wears a lot of tank tops and shorts as well as the occasional hoodie if it’s cold, and loves running around barefoot. Personality: A lot of people describe Danny as being a “smaller and cuter Tim”, but that’s just not true. Danny is a lot like his older brother in many ways, but he has a much more refined taste for adventure, constantly getting himself into trouble with Jon on the grounds of “exploring” or what have you. He idolizes his big bro to the moon and back, and loves hanging out with him alongside the other kids. More of a follower than a leader, but he doesn’t mind. Secretly fears the day that the circus will come back to make him into their future ringmaster.
Full Name: Melanie King Age: 9 Birthday: June 7th (Gemini) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The Slaughter, Marked by The Corruption, Marked by The Desolation, Marked by The Eye Guardian(s): Boris King (Biological Father - Deceased), Carrie King (Biological Mother - Deceased), Alfred Grifter (Guardian - Uninvolved), Gerard Keay (Guardian - Current) Appearance: Irish heritage but not terribly pale, rather short for her age, incredibly thin from malnutrition, short brown hair with the ends dyed bright blue, bright brown eyes, brings her leather jacket and her guitar with her everywhere she goes, wears a lot of pink/blue skirts and band t-shirts, wears black leather boots, has a lot of bandages on her knees and knuckles, and always has a camera ready to record things. Personality: Melanie is probably the most disconnected of the avatar kids (save for Helen), seeing as she only just recently joined the group, but already she’s beginning to befriend Sasha and Basira. She’s very protective of the other girls, and she keeps challenging the boys to fight her (only Danny ever agrees; he always loses). Secretly idolizes Julia and Daisy, but will never admit it. She sees Gerry as her big bro and Alfred Grifter as her adoptive dad; she misses Alfred more than she let’s on. Would stab as a warning.
Full Name: Julia Montauk Age: 13 Birthday: April 19th (Aries) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The Hunt, Marked by The Dark, Marked by The Eye Guardian(s): Robert Montauk (Biological Father - Deceased), Linette Montauk (Biological Mother - Deceased), Trevor Herbert (Adoptive Father - Current) Appearance: Indigenous heritage with dark tan skin, tall for her age, skinny enough to look malnourished, close-cropped red hair that gets her mistaken for a boy a lot, metal grey eyes, a scar runs diagonally across her right eye, often wears medium length skirts and oversized t-shirts, always wears athletic shoes, has a lot of scrapes and bandages on her knees most of the time, and has abnormally sharp canines. Personality: Before the deaths of both of her parents, Julia was considered rather normal for her age, being interested in horses, dolls, and dress-up games. After her mother died, she became more tomboyish, which only became more extreme after her father’s death. Since being taken in by Trevor, Julia’s been trying to act more like an adult in an attempt to seem less vulnerable, to varying degrees of success. She adores Trevor to the moon and back, and sees Daisy as her little sister. A bit standoffish around other children, but she’s got a good heart.
Full Name: Alice “Daisy” Tonner Age: 10 Birthday: March 15th (Pisces) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The Hunter, Marked by The Slaughter, Marked by The Eye Guardian(s): Greyson Tonner (Biological Father - Deceased), Antoinette Tonner (Biological Mother - Uninvolved), Trevor Herbert (Adoptive Father - Current) Appearance: Welsh heritage with cream colored skin and a light tan, average height for her age, short and shaggy blond hair, has a number of tiny scars all over her face and hands, has a huge scar on her back that Trevor has told her looks like a daisy, striking green eyes, wears a lot of sleeveless shirts and shorts, refuses to wear dresses or skirts, prefers to be barefoot, and has abnormally sharp canines. Personality: Is already rather hot-headed at her age, especially after her encounter with Calvin while he was being possessed by a spirit of the Slaughter. Even so, she’s protective of her newfound family of Trevor and Julia, and while she misses her mother, she believes it’s best if she stays where she is. She loves playing outside whenever she can, and will spend hours chasing after squirrels and rabbits if left alone for too long. A bit argumentative, but she gets along really well with Julia and Basira.
Full Name: Oliver Banks Age: 10 Birthday: June 14th (Gemini) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The End, Marked by The Hunt Guardian(s): June Banks (Biological Mother - Uninvolved), Isaac Banks (Biological Father - Deceased), The Admiral (Adoptive Guardian - Current) Appearance: African heritage with dark skin, has an array of pitch black freckles on his face, short and neat black hair that reaches just below his ears, ghastly grey eyes that look almost clear and turn black when he’s using his powers; used to be dark brown, worryingly thin from years of malnutrition, wears a lot of baggy and long-sleeved shirts, wears sweatpants, has boots on everywhere he goes, and he’s almost always shivering. Personality: The more distrustful of the “End Siblings”, the only person Oliver even sort of likes is Jon, and even then he’s still scared of him. Constantly fidgeting and yawning from both his paranoia and fatigue. Is protective of Georgie, but more out of obligation than friendship. Prefers to be alone, and rarely visits the archives. He knows something bad is coming, but he’s too scared to do much about it. In the end, he knows he’ll do the right thing, but for now he’s hiding until the bombs finally fall.
Full Name: Georgie Barker Age: 7 Birthday: December 9th (Sagittarius) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The End, Marked by The Hunt Guardian(s): Georgie Grounding Sr. (Biological Mother - Deceased), Sarah Grounding (Biological Mother - Deceased), Jason Barker (Adoptive Father - Deceased), The Admiral (Adoptive Guardian - Current) Appearance: Mixed race heritage of African and Indian with dark brown skin, fairly chubby, has an array of light brown freckles all over her arms, back, and face, has long and curly black hair done up in poofy buns using colorful hair bands, paints her nails all the time with different colors every week, cutest little smile you ever did see, wears a lot of ghost-related clothing (mainly t-shirts and jeans), and she brings her ghost backpack with her everywhere she goes (it has her stuffed leopard inside). Personality: Despite being an avatar of the End, Georgie has a very upbeat personality, having no time for her adoptive brother’s endless worrying and fearfulness. In fact, all her fear has been gone since she was little, so she’s never scared to explore something new and parade into danger! She’s very close friends with Jon (even if he’s distant sometimes) and best friends with Melanie, though she gets along with most everyone else as well. She may be a chipper person, but look out, she’s carrying more baggage than she let’s on. Loves The Admiral more than life.
Full Name: Michael “Mike” Crew Age: 14 Birthday: May 13th (Taurus) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The Vast Guardian(s): Ramsey Crew (Biological Father - Uninvolved), Whitney Crew (Biological Mother - Uninvolved), Simon Fairchild (Adoptive Father - Current) Appearance: Caucasian and pale as a ghost, shaggy white hair that’s almost always wind-swept, strikingly pale blue eyes, smells of ozone and burnt hair, incredibly short for his age, very bony and thin, tends to wear a lot of oversized hoodies on the grounds that they make flying more fun, clothes are almost always pristine and clean, his back, right arm, and right leg are covered in a Lichtenberg scar that glows bright blue when he’s using his powers, permanent bags under his eyes. Personality: A very, very quiet kid, at least around strangers. He’s much bubblier around Simon, but otherwise he’s viewed as an “old soul” by most adults. He does have a sense of humor though, taking a bit too much pleasure out of sending people soaring into the air against their will, especially if they insulted or annoyed him beforehand. Secretly a bit protective of the other avatar kids, and has been known to take them flying if they promise not to let go of him when they do so. Nice kid, but don’t make fun of his height or he might just electrocute you out of spite.
Full Name: Helen Richardson Age: 3 Birthday: February 23rd (Gemini) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The Spiral Guardian(s): Tiara Richardson (Biological Mother - Uninvolved), Dexter Richardson (Biological Father - Deceased), Michael Shelley (Adoptive Guardian - Current) Appearance: African heritage with dark brown skin (has the beginning patches of vitiligo on her face and hands), fairly chubby but Michael swears it’s just baby fat, has bright purple eyes with swirling yellow irises, has short but frizzy black hair that cannot be tamed, is often dressed in very colorful onesies and footie pajamas alongside the rare dress, and occasionally she’ll have a child leash vest on (though it often disappears because of The Spiral). Personality: She honestly doesn’t have much of a personality yet, being a toddler and all, but she’s a very giggly child, and loves nothing more than making Michael “be silly” with the use of her powers. Speaking of which, she has very little control of her abilities, and although she’s too young to understand their impact on the world, she still feels bad when she accidentally goes too far and gets Michael hurt. She adores Michael and Jon, and loves it when Michael brings her to the institute with him. Very playful and mischievous.
And that’s all I’ve got for now! I wanna write some fics for this at some point (particularly I wanna write a fic that has all of the kids’ origin stories in better/more detail), but for now anyone is free to fuck around with this AU, so long as you’re not doing too much shipping between the kids (hints at ships are fine, but they’re still kids, y’all) and ESPECIALLY not any shipping of the kids with the adults/guardians. Feel free to PM me or scream about this AU in the notes/tags; I’d love to hear people’s thoughts!
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aion-rsa · 4 years
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The 25 Best SNL Holiday Sketches
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The holidays are a special time around 30 Rock. While tourists flock to see the towering Christmas tree, the Saturday Night Live writers room is busy thinking of holiday sketches you’ll reminisce about as you put up the stockings for years to come. Some of SNL’s all-time great sketches illustrate the best of the holiday spirit or lack thereof as show’s biggest stars often shined the brightest just before the New Year. 
From unlikely Santas to unorthodox gift-giving, we’re looking at 25 of our favorite Saturday Night Live holiday sketches. We’ll be going in chronological order here. There is a big dose of modern stuff in there, but what can I say? The show might be more miss than hit these days, but they really hit it out of the park year after year with the Christmas sketches.
Santi-Wrap (1976)
Very early in the show’s run, we get this classic where an adult woman (Laraine Newman) is all about sitting on Santa’s lap like when she was a little kid. The initial laugh is that before sitting down, she puts pieces of toilet paper on Santa’s leg for protection, like one would do in a public bathroom. Dan Aykroyd, her companion on this trip, seems shocked by this. Not that she’s trying to protect herself from germs, but because she’s not going far enough!
Suddenly, it turns out to be a commercial for Santi-Wrap, a festive and plasticky take on toilet seat covers. Not only do those two sell the product concept so well, but John Belushi as the mall Santa pushes it further by coming off as a complete disaster of a man who is probably riddled with disease.
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One of the show’s all-time best line deliveries is Belushi’s drunken, “Ho ho ho…” which has both defiant gusto and the sense that he’s seconds away from vomiting all over himself.
Mr. Robinson’s Christmas (1984)
Saturday Night Live has been a stepping stone to superstardom ever since Chevy Chase became a household name during its first season. In the 80s, Eddie Murphy’s recurring roles on SNL helped raise his profile as he eventually became one of, if not the biggest star of the decade. It was around Christmas time when Murphy’s spin on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood became one of the sketches that came to define his tenure at Studio 8H.
Mr. Robinson’s neighborhood isn’t quite as nice as Mister Rogers’ but at Christmas time you have to make the best with what you have. Mr. Robinson was able to do that with a chunk of lettuce and a headless doll and Murphy was able to make the most of every opportunity he had on SNL.
It’s a Wonderful Life: The Lost Ending (1986)
If you’ve seen the 1946 American Christmas classic It’s A Wonderful Life, odds are you’ve been inspired by its heart-warming ending. Thanks to SNL and host William Shatner, we now have footage of the “fabled” lost ending to Frank Capra’s Christmas epic and it’s anything but heartwarming. Rather than end the film with everyone coming to George Bailey’s aid in his time of need and celebrating his lifetime of selflessness and kindness, it decides to give Mr. Potter a fate more explicit than being doomed to failure and loneliness. Phil Hartman pops in as Uncle Billy and not only remembers what happened to the missing money, but knows exactly who has it!
Dana Carvey makes the sketch as a George Bailey hell-bent on revenge. It just wouldn’t be Christmas without seeing him give Mr. Potter a beat down alongside his bloodthirsty loved ones.
Master Thespian Plays Santa Claus (1987)
Jon Lovitz’s characters were usually very hammy by design. Whether he was a pathological liar or the Devil himself, he always went to 11. One of his better recurring characters was Master Thespian, a scene-chewing Shakespearean actor who takes himself and his roles far too seriously.
In this installment, he would be playing the role of a mall Santa Claus.
Thespian doesn’t seem to have heard of Santa, but he’s down for the part. Finding out that there’s no actual script, he improvises and figures out the character via making mistakes and getting scolded by the Macy’s manager (played by Phil Hartman, choosing to base his performance on Frank Nelson because why not). To his surprise, Santa Claus actually LIKES children! These are notes a performer needs to know, man!
Seeing him play off the kids and Hartman is a blast. Speaking of which, one of the better gags is a fart joke that somehow proves how great an actor Master Thespian truly is. THANK YOUUUUUU!
Hanukkah Harry (1989)
Santa Claus (Phil Hartman) is violently ill with the flu, so it seems Christmas might be cancelled. Luckily, there is one man capable of fulfilling his obligations through the same kind of holiday magic. Hanukkah Harry (Jon Lovitz), Santa’s Jewish counterpart, is called in to help.
At its core, it’s a lengthy sketch about Jewish jokes and how lame Hanukkah is outside of it lasting eight days. Springing off of that, it actually makes for a really good, if a little touching, holiday story. There are definite laughs in there, but what was created to be a parody hits a little too close and becomes a genuine gem celebrating both holidays and the spirit of togetherness.
“On Moishe! On Herschel! On Schlomo!”
Motivational Santa (1993)
What started as a pep talk for troubled teens turned into Chris Farley’s iconic recurring character. Matt Foley, the thrice-divorced, sweaty, overweight man who lived in a van down by the river, crashed into our living rooms in 1993 and remained a fixture on SNL until Farley was fired from the show in 1995.
Sometimes a sketch is so successful that the writers are almost forced to bring one or more of its characters around again and Matt Foley was no exception. In one of the funnier times Matt Foley returned, he was hired to spread Christmas cheer as a motivational mall Santa, offering up this gem:
“‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the van Your ol’ buddy Matt fell asleep on the can. His children were nestled two time zones away, With his first wife and her husband, in sunny L.A. Matt woke up and realized with a chill and a quiver That he was living in a van down by the river!“
Though many of the same jokes and physical gags are recycled, Farley’s effort, from the painfully high pitch of his voice to crashing down the chimney, earns the Motivational Santa a place in SNL Christmas lore. 
Adam Sandler’s Hanukkah Song (1994)
Yes, we’ve heard Adam Sandler’s “The Hanukkah Song” a million times over, but we shouldn’t let that cloud our judgement. It’s one of the first clips that pops into your head when you think “SNL Holiday Sketches” and it will go down as a landmark moment when the history of “Weekend Update” is written 200 years from now. Sandler didn’t use his time to evoke images of being a Jew at Christmas, rather he chose to praise the Festival of Lights and name-drop all the famous people who celebrate it. Since debuting the song in 1994, Sandler’s updated it for his comedy albums and standup routine and given Jewish kids something other than “The Dreidel Song” to belt during during the holidays. Sandler’s clever, original moment is about as influential as it gets for any not-ready-for-prime time player.
It did lead to the movie Eight Crazy Nights, so it isn’t free from sin.
TV Funhouse: Fun with Real Audio (1997)
It’s rare for SNL to get poignant, but here’s a fantastic example. In this animated short, Jesus Christ returns to Earth and spends the first opening minutes being ignored and shoved into the background for disagreeing with televangelists who use his name to line their pockets with donations or to justify their hatred of homosexuals. These bits are, of course, animated over actual audio of said real life sociopaths. Jesus is able to give them their just desserts with his divine magic, but it bums him out.
Walking the city streets, unnoticed by the public at large, Jesus watches Christmas-themed TV through a store window and is disappointed with what he sees. That is, until he comes across Linus’ speech at the end of A Charlie Brown Christmas and we get a final moment that’s adorable, uplifting, and pretty hilarious.
NPR’S Delicious Dish: Schweddy Balls (1998)
The dry, NPR-host banter between Ana Gasteyer’s Margaret Jo McCullen — who cheerfully admits that she leaves tap water and rice out for Santa because “Christmas foods really wreak havoc on the ol’ digestive system” — and Molly Shannon’s Teri Rialto as they discuss delectable Yuletide “balls” with Alec Baldwin’s Pete Schweddy is a can’t-miss skit. The trio makes monotone an art form, while remaining dedicated to the naivety of the characters involved. (In response to Alec Baldwin’s, “But the thing I most like to bring out this time of year are my balls,” their faces barely twitch.) It’s double entendre at its finest, and never fails to leave me in stitches.
Pete Schweddy returned in another episode where he introduced the women to his hotdogs, but having them show so much interest in putting his wiener in their mouths was a little too easy a joke to pull off.
I Wish It Was Christmas Today (2000-the heat death of the universe)
On one December episode, there was a short segment of Horatio Sanz, Jimmy Fallon, Chris Kattan, and Tracy Morgan playing a catchy, albeit incredibly stupid song about Christmas being on the way. Sanz played a skinny guitar while singing, Fallon occasionally pressed an elephant noise button on the keyboard, Kattan held the keyboard while shaking his head, and Morgan danced with a look on his face like he got dragged on stage against his will. It was silly and would have probably been forgotten soon after.
Instead, they returned a week later and insisted on playing it again despite being explicitly told not to. Soon they would start playing it during non-December months to show Christmas’ superiority over other holidays. After Simon Cowell insulted the group, he sheepishly agreed that he wanted to join them and broke out some maracas. One year, when Sanz was the only one left in the cast, he replaced his buddies with Fozzie Bear, Gonzo, and Animal while Kermit the Frog danced in a way that you have to wonder if a Muppet is capable of snorting coke.
The song still gets brought out now and then, usually on Fallon’s show. It’s even been covered by Julian Casablancas and Cheap Trick of all people!
They did sing a completely different Christmas song one time, but nobody cared.
Glengarry Glen Elf: Christmas Motivation (2005)
Alec Baldwin seems to be the go-to host for classic Christmas sketches. Playing on his iconic Glengarry Glen Ross character Blake, Baldwin (in a way) reprises the role as 615-year-old “elf from the home office” sent to straighten out the subpar work of Santa’s elves. There couldn’t have been a more perfect break in character than when Baldwin says “Always Be Closing” instead of “Always Be Cobbling” as scripted. It’s a slip-up that makes for a perfect holiday sketch, full of deep-bellied laughs. 
TV Funhouse: Christmastime for the Jews (2005)
Not only is the witty “Christmas for the Jews” written by comedy legend Robert Smigel, but it’s sung by David Letterman’s Christmas angel Darlene Love. In “Christmas for the Jews,” the characters see “Fiddler on the Roof,” grab an early dinner, and enjoy dreamland Daily Show reruns. It’s an intriguing and catchy look at the other side of the Christmas season, complete with a very Rankin-Bass animation style.
Digital Short: Dick in a Box (2006)
Justin Timberlake is one of the most entertaining, versatile hosts that SNL has been gifted. A member of their prestigious Five-Timers Club, “Dick in a Box” is Timberlake’s most memorable sketch, filled with skeevy, disgusting come-ons from Andy Samberg and Timberlake, which has been viewed just millions and millions of times. In 2006, Timberlake had already impressed critics and viewers alike with his acting range in Alpha Dog, but his comedic turns on SNL solidified him as an actor. Timberlake has done a lot of impressive things in his time as an entertainer, but there are few more enjoyable (or laughable) than “Dick in a Box.”
These two R&B weirdos would return later on to sleep with each other’s moms as reciprocated Mother’s Day presents and later swear that being in a two-guy/one-girl three-way isn’t considered gay.
John Malkovich Reads ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas (2008)
As quipped by the man himself, no one emits Christmas spirit quite like John Malkovich. This admission yields the self-reflexive irony of Malkovich reading “The Night Before Christmas” to the children of SNL’s staff. Malkovich, pausing during his reading of the holiday classic, asks the children about the suicide rate rising during the holidays, talking about how shooting a home invader in California is “perfectly legal,” musing about how the tonnage of Santa’s sleigh and reindeer would (scientifically speaking) burst into flames, how in Portugal their version of Saint Nicholas steals children’s toes, as well as reciting the gem: “You know what they say about hopes; they’re what we cling to when reality has left us nothing else.” If you’re in a lighthearted Christmas mood, Malkovich’s monologue is certainly one to enjoy.
Stefon on Holiday Travel (2010)
Bill Hader was highly respected for his versatility and range during his time at SNL, but it was his improvisational skills that turned a Weekend Update bit into a must-see recurring segment. Stefon, likely the defining character for SNL during the 2010s thus far, informed New Yorkers and tourists alike of the city’s hottest nightclubs – with Hader almost always breaking down in laughter as his cue cards were frequently changed from the rehearsal to throw him off.
Stefon knew how to get weird and you can imagine he’d save some fun things for the a “classic New York holiday.” Make sure to check out the Lower, Lower East Side dump hosted by Tranderson Cooper or find a club with the right amount of Puerto Rican Screeches or Gay Aladdins. Just don’t run over the Human Parking Cones.
Stefon would return with more Christmastime insight three years later, where he’d discuss a club called [loud Tauntaun noises], founded by Jewish cartoon character Menorah the Explorer.
Under-Underground Crunkmas Karnival (2010)
Good God, I wish there were more Under-Underground Records sketches. As a parody of the Gathering of the Juggalos, we’d regularly see DJ Supersoak (Jason Sudeikis) and Lil Blaster (Nasim Pedrad) excitedly talk up huge concert events that are needlessly violent and inexplicable in their randomness. For instance, there’s the Crunkmas Karnival, which features such musical acts as Dump, Boys II Dicks, Scrotum Fire, and…Third Eye Blind for some reason.
It’s just a bunch of loud humor that goes back and forth between being stupidly hardcore and being meekly out of left field. Yes, you can go check out a “dong tug-of-war,” but you can also see a special 2D screening of the Owls of Ga’hoole or meet Spaceballs star Pizza the Hut. Not to mention the return of their most fondly remembered running gag, the endless undying and dying of Ass Dan.
This Christmas-based event will take place in February. Sounds about right.
Ornaments (2011)
Every now and then, SNL will do a sketch towards the end of the show where the guest will talk about whichever holiday is coming up and awkwardly go into one of the aspects of it, such as Easter eggs or Halloween candy. In this instance, it’s Steve Buscemi unloading a box of Christmas ornaments and commenting on each one. All the while, Kristen Wiig plays Sheila, his girlfriend who appears to be more than a little off and doesn’t quite grasp tree decorating.
Buscemi’s descriptions range from delightful non-humor to outlandish and disturbing. He might make an intentionally lame joke about one ornament before holding up another and matter-of-factly letting you know that, “I put this one up my butt.”
And somehow he’s still the straight man in this bit.
You’re a Rat Bastard Charlie Brown (2012)
This sketch is centered on Bill Hader playing Al Pacino, playing Charlie Brown. The rest of the cast turns out bang-up impressions as well: Jason Sudeikis playing Philip Seymour Hoffman playing Pigpen, Kate McKinnon as Edie Falco playing Lucy (as Charlie Brown’s drug peddling therapist, causing a holiday-blues Charlie to say, “Oh yeah…I want something to take me sky high!”), Martin Short playing Larry David playing Linus, Taran Killam doing Michael Keaton as Schroeder, and Cecily Strong as Fran Drescher as Charlie Brown’s mother, all performed in front of a baffled childhood audience.
For anyone who grew up watching Charlie Brown and Co., watching Bill Hader/Al Pacino/Charlie Brown unleash the expletive-laden “You’re gonna hold that f***ing football?!” towards Kate McKinnion/Edie Falco/Lucy, and saying, “Ow, you bitch!” after she pulls it away is absolutely to die for.
Jebidiah Atkinson on Holiday Movies (2013)
For a time, Taran Killam played Jebidiah Atkinson, a Weekend Update character based on how an old newspaper editorial was discovered that panned Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Atkinson, somehow still alive, would appear and read review snippets about other big speeches he hated.
One of his return appearances had him discuss holiday specials and movies. Every single one of them he hates. Every single one of them gets roasted. His vicious energy is so over-the-top that the good jokes land and the bad jokes still get a laugh from the misplaced confidence. Over these several minutes, he screams about how much of a depressing bore A Charlie Brown Christmas is, how the Grinch stole a half hour of his life, and how every time they play It’s a Wonderful Life, an angel blows its brains out.
This one is admittedly a bit dated with its biggest joke, where his distaste for Snoopy is so great that he wishes Family Guy killed him off instead of Brian. The horror from the audience still makes it worth it.
St. Joseph’s Christmas Mass Spectacular (2014)
Ah, Christmas Mass. The drum solo for every childhood during Christmas time. It’s uncomfortable and especially boring. Ergo, liven it up by framing it as a big, in-your-face event via what amounts to a monster truck rally commercial!
It’s a brilliant use of contrast. Take an event that is so mundane with so many familiar and shared experiences and treat it like it’s some extreme thing. The familiarity of the pastor making corny jokes that get the most minor of laughs is treated like a once-in-a-lifetime event. It shines a light on the weird tics of the prominent people you see at church and feels amazingly universal.
The SNL cast is fantastic here, but the MVP is Cecily Strong as the middle-age woman who is way into doing a reading in the loudest, most overly articulate speaking voice possible.
Sump’N Claus (2014)
Getting gifts from Santa Claus is great and all, but when you grow up, you realize how hard it truly is to be nice all year round. Luckily, there’s an alternative. Introduced via an extremely catchy song, we meet Sump’n Claus (Keenan Thompson), a pimp-like offshoot of Santa who not only used to work for St. Nick, but also appears to have some dirt on him.
Sump’n Claus sings several verses about people who have had breakdowns and would be thrown onto the naughty list. Sump’n Claus doesn’t care about that. You be you. Every December, he’ll still be there to hand you an envelope full of twenties and fifties. He’s the holiday mascot for adults, basically.
One of the highlights is how he mentions that Santa is not your friend as friends don’t watch you while you’re sleeping.
The Christmas Candle (2016)
Christmas has been saved by many different things: ghosts who see through time, an angel trying to earn his wings, a reindeer’s glowing nose, New Yorkers singing “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” and so on. Then again, sometimes you need a savior for something with lower stakes.
In the form of a mid-1990s all ladies group that gives me kind of a Celine Dion vibe, we’re given a wonderful song that starts with the tale of a woman who had to get a coworker a gift for Secret Santa. She found an old peach candle in her closet and just gave her that. The second verse is a similar situation where not only is a peach candle given as a throwaway gift to an acquaintance, but it’s THE SAME candle. Yes, somehow this one peach candle is re-gifted across the globe through latter December by women and gay men who couldn’t be bothered to put thought into their presents.
Truly a miracle.
First Impression (2018)
Beck Bennett plays a guy about to finally meet his girlfriend’s (Melissa Villaseñor) parents and he’s nervous as hell. She assures him that he’ll be fine, but he really wants to impress them. Sure enough, he tries to impress them in the weirdest way by hiding somewhere in the house and speaking in a high-pitched voice in order to dare them to find him. Her parents (Jason Momoa and Heidi Gardner) are notably confused, as is she.
It’s already a strange and silly bit, but Jason Momoa shifts it into gear by suddenly being COMPLETELY into it. Removing his jacket with purpose, Momoa excitedly starts searching the house for this guy. The fact that Momoa is playing an overweight 60-year-old man is enough of a novelty, but he brings this oddball zest to the role as he starts to literally tear the home to pieces in order to get a look at his daughter’s elusive boyfriend.
The boyfriend’s plans here are both overly complicated and half-baked, culminating in an ending that’s as happy as it’s inexplicable and off-putting.
North Pole News Report (2019)
When Eddie Murphy returned to SNL, there was much fanfare. A completely solid episode, it admittedly spent too much of its runtime revisiting his old recurring classics like Mr. Robinson, Gumby, and Velvet Jones. The final sketch of the night goes full blast with his manic energy as he plays an elf eyewitness on the elf news, screaming bloody murder about a horrible tragedy. Mikey Day is reporter Donny Chestnut, looking at the destruction of a toy factory. As he tries to make heads or tails of what’s going on, Murphy bursts onto the scene, screaming about a polar bear attacking the elves and eating them like Skittles. And just screaming in general.
The best line comes from the elf (who keeps declaring, “IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT MY NAME IS!”) bringing over one of the survivors, and noting that, “This white, teenage elf girl ran out here, straight up to me – a black elf in sweatpants – and asked me to keep her safe. That’s how bad it is!” Despite this elf being right about the situation, Donny Chestnut keeps trying to sideline him for being increasingly erratic about Santa’s potential role in the slaughter and what it means for Christmas. Even as he trips over some of his lines, Eddie Murphy is so damn precious here.
AAAAAAHHHHHHH!!
December to Remember Car Commercial (2020)
It might be in bad form to include a sketch from this very year, but man, this joke is not only long overdue, but the acting is top notch. Heidi Gardner’s barely repressed rage is something special.
You’ve seen the commercial a million times. It’s Christmas morning and someone reveals a brand new car to a loved one. As part of Lexus’ December to Remember, Beck Bennett reveals a brand new Lexus with a giant bow to his wife (Gardner) and their son (Timothée Chalamet). What initially appears as shock turns out to be fury and confusion over what is a selfish and short-sighted decision. Buying a car is a huge deal and isn’t something you don’t tell your significant other. More than that, Bennett’s character hasn’t been employed for about a year and a half and has no way of affording such a thing. The thread is pulled away, unraveling both how much of an idiot he is and how doomed their family life happens to be.
Then neighbor Mikey Day shows up and it hits another level. Beck Bennett is the expert at playing guys with misplaced confidence who haven’t come close to thinking things through.
The post The 25 Best SNL Holiday Sketches appeared first on Den of Geek.
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whumpitywhumpwhump · 4 years
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Here’s Mafia Week Day 7! Prompt: Vendetta.
There’s a bit where they discuss homophobia briefly, and also there’s some death mentioned too (specifically of a pregnant person).Oh, and a brief mention/reference to a bad childhood home (implied child abuse, but nothing explicit here). 
Beck didn’t leave his apartment for two days. He also didn’t hear from Simon.
Instead, he sat on his couch, icing his face, clutching a pillow against his aching chest. Usually after a good beatdown, the pain made it too difficult to entertain thoughts, but this time the panic was cutting cleanly through all other sensations. Where was Simon? Was he ok? Did Pat even know yet? How long would it be until he found out? And after that, would he piece together the truth about him and Simon?
If it were any other family that had gotten ahold of the briefcase, Beck thought bitterly, it would have been alright—survivable, at least. But the Connells? They’ve been the enemies for decades, long before Beck even joined up. Back when he was still a toddler three states away, hiding from his parents as they smashed dishes against walls and screamed, Pat and his wife Mirabel were expecting a child—an heir to the family business.
Simon told him the whole story one night, while they were sitting in Beck’s car, maybe three months after they’d started dating.
“How come Pat never married or had his own kids? He always calls you his heir and stuff, why not have his own?”
“He was married once, but it didn’t end well for Aunt Mirabel.”
“Wait, really? What happened?”
“Aunt Mirabel was a fierce woman and ran as much of the business as Uncle Pat did. From what everyone says, she was nothing like Ma. My mother is great, but she would never be willing to go head-to-head with, say, the head of the Bertinessis or something. Aunt Mirabel would walk right in, and they’d be scared of her. Even after she got pregnant. You don’t have to guess why Uncle Pat loved her so much. Nick used to tell me about the two of them together, what Uncle Pat was like back then. He was… warmer, apparently. Not with anyone else, just with her.
Anyway, she was like, 5 months along or something, right? And Uncle Pat’s got this sting planned on the Connells, at one of their old hideouts, a seafood place down by the dock. And everything was going just as planned, until one of their people escaped the hit, and took matters into his own hands. It was the Connell heir at the time, this kid named Joel. A lot of his relatives died in the hit, so he decided to strike back, right where it hurt. He came to Uncle Pat’s house and started shooting through the windows—this was his old house, not the one you’ve seen. My uncle wasn’t home, because he was waiting at the deli for the report after the hit. By the time he got home, Aunt Mirabel was… well, he took her to the hospital, and they couldn’t do anything for her or the baby.”
“That’s terrible.”
“He couldn’t remarry—that’s why I’m his heir. A blood nephew, next best thing to a son of his own. It’s also why he hates the Connells so much. He’s basically had a vendetta against them ever since then. Anything they’re involved is immediately life and death, no negotiations, no second chances, nothing. Which, I don’t agree, necessarily, but I get it, you know?”
“Yeah, makes sense.”
Beck hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but now—well, now, that vendetta put a target on Simon’s head. And, he supposed, on his.
The idea of falling in love with Simon hadn’t seemed that dangerous before it happened, or even while he was falling. It was only after that he realized the implications. Again, Simon had to spell it out for him.
“My uncle can’t know we’re dating.”
“Wait, what? Why not? I though he was ok with gay people—isn’t Mad Dog gay?”
“Oh no, Uncle Pat’s not homophobic or anything, he doesn’t really care about that stuff. Like, my mom dated a few women back in the day. It’s not that.”
“Then what?”
“Well… I’m his heir.”
“What does that have to do with it?”
“I’m the closest blood relative in the next generation, you know?”
“Yeah?”
“So one day, I’ll need an heir.”
“Makes sense, but—”
“A blood heir. I need to make a kid. Biologically.”
“But Uncle Pat chose you, and you’re his nephew, not his son.”
“True. But I don’t have any siblings, so I can’t choose a niece or nephew. It has to be my kid, or at least, it has to be under Uncle Pat’s rules at least. Once he dies, I’m just gonna do what I want to, but for now, he can’t know. You can’t let him know, Beck. He will kill you if he thinks you’re a threat to the family line. I’m serious, ok?”
Simon wasn’t serious often, but then again, he never fidgeted either, and when he asked Beck to keep their relationship secret, he was curling and uncurling his fingers in his lap. So Beck had nodded.
“I won’t say a word.”
And he hadn’t. Beck had done everything in his power to keep Pat from finding out about them, because he didn’t want to die, and he didn’t want anything to happen to Simon. But now, if Pat killed Simon, and he figured out that the reason Simon screwed up was a secret relationship with Beck? Well, in short, they were both fucked.
Normally, Beck could keep his calm. But he also usually heard from his boyfriend pretty quickly when things were dangerous because Simon knew he’d worry.
Two days, and not a single text or call from Simon—that was not good news.
Beck pulled himself up from the couch, stifling a groan as his ribs shifted. They still hurt like hell, but he’d just take another ibuprofen and ignore them. He shuffled into the kitchen and pulled the fridge open. The little light flicked on inside, illuminating the scant contents. With a sigh, he grabbed the container of sliced ham, a few slices of cheddar, and the jar of mayonnaise. Halfway through prepping his sandwich for dinner, he heard his cellphone buzzing in the next room. He considered going to check it right away, but a grumble in his stomach convinced him it could wait for two minutes while he got this sandwich ready.
Carrying his dinner on a plate, he returned to the living room and settled back onto the couch. He balanced the plate on the arm and picked up his phone.
MR. RIGGS flashed on the screen—the codename he’d used for Simon in his phone. He swallowed hard and unlocked his phone, opening the message. The text was short, but thorough.
He knows.
As Beck’s thumb hovered over the keys, trying to figure any way to answer that, a second message appeared.
He knows about everything.
Sweat broke out along Beck’s hairline. His skin crawled like he could already sense a gun pointed at him. A third message came up, longer.
He’s going to kill me—I’m in my room, door’s locked, but he’s coming up. Beck, you need to leave the city. I love you, I’m sorry.
Beck typed out the words, “I love you too, Simon,” but before he pressed send, one last message flashed onscreen.
I’m scared, Beck.
Somehow, that was worse than the other messages. Simon was never scared, not enough to admit it to anyone. Beck’s eyes watered, and he straightened up on the couch.
He was not going to let Pat kill Simon—not tonight, not ever.
Beck closed his text with Simon and typed in a different number in his phone, one he hadn’t used in years. He typed as fast as he could, trying to say everything in as few words as possible. She never liked long, winding explanations.
Hey, Sadie. It’s Beck. I need your help. My boyfriend is Pat the Butcher’s nephew, he leaked info to the Connell family (my fault), and Pat is going to kill him. Text me back ASAP.
Looking down at the message, he clicked send, then chuckled sadly. It wasn’t how he planned on coming out to his sister, but then again, he’d planned on never speaking to her again.
Her reply popped up maybe two minutes later.
They’re taking him to the docks, pit stop at the deli for a beatdown. Cement shoes. Be there in 20, wait 30 secs after they drop him, go in after. I’ll pick you up on the corner of 8th and Bettler, 10 mins after, black SUV with Oregon plates.
Perks of having a sister who was also a criminal mastermind—he’d never found a limit to what Sadie could find out or fix. Who she called in the organization to get those details, he’d never know, but he was so grateful she did. As he pushed himself up from the couch to grab his keys, his phone buzzed again, and he looked down to see another message from Sadie.
When he unlocked the screen, he grinned softly. It was just a little rainbow flag emoji.
He shook his head, dropping his phone into his pocket. He grabbed his keys, wallet, and a coat, stepped into some sneakers, then rushed out the door.
It was time to go save Simon.
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conchstellations · 5 years
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watching the 1990 LOTF movie!! my reactions:
hello all!!!! i was bored at midnight again so here it is: me watchin the 1990 movie, for the first time, hell yeah!!!!! here we go!!! its got the other movie to live up to, so im excited for a comedy lmao!! tl;dr at end if u want!!! its kinda long btw lmao
- castle rock entertainment??? piggy u better watch out bro
- fuck is that the pilot???
- k this isnt a big thing but why are they in water? the plane left a scar in the earth, they were on land.
- okay, again, me nitpicking. but idk, to me, they dont look 12?? maybe its just cause theyre all dressed up n that but they dont look like 12 yr olds to me like the last movie
- why tf does ralph (?) have a glowstick lmaooooo
- why are they all together. where is my conch. wher are my stupid ass choir outfits. maybe im not there yet and they have them, but i want my stupid cloaks!!! jack would not stand for this!!!
- why TF is the pilot alive???
- am i supposed to know whos who by now?? did i just miss that?? which ones ralph? which ones jack?? wheres simon???
- conch??? the conchs main job is to bring them together, and here theyre already together so???
- piggy already makin me love him gosh piggy is child
- okay so im guessing brown hair kid is ralph
- piggy protecting conch rights
- i do like piggys sass... very iconic
- okay whAT??? is that blonde kid supposed to be jack?? first off, jack has red hair. second off, there is no way in hELL THAT MY basTARD child jack merridew would let ralph win the election just like that??? wheres my choir??? wheres my c sharp???
- okay jack would for sure call piggy shitbrain nvm
- mY CHOIR WOULD NOT ACCEPT THAT SINGING. 
- wheres simon????
- r they fuckin cookin lizards??? nvm look away simon pls dont be in this
- is thAT BITCH supposed to be Simon?? hes got a lot to look up to. also why the FUCK is the adult alive. taht ruins the whole purpose of the entire book
- was that a dream??? sorry im dumb af lmao
- alrght simon is kind of an adorable hild and he likes lizard maybe hes valid?
- idk.. for some reason this ralph isnt like, giving me ralph vibes?? hes just not bring like ralphish u know??
- now im getting a little bit more of our beloved lil bitch ralph..
- okay wtf is going on lmao
- “SHOVE THEIR DICK IN THE CONCH” had me laughing for a solid fucking 30 minutes. william golding who??? whoever wrote that line is the new icon
- ‘EAT SHIT AND DIE”  okay wtffff im so confused but also vv entertained
- for some reason jack’s character is like 100% off, but also somehow 100% on point “thats exactly what i meant” like holy shit. like idk hes not jack but just sometimes he radiates “jack if he was allowed to swear and was less of a lil bitch” energy
- ok simon and lizard?? valid
- i swear to FUCKING GOD i will kill that child!!!
- im gonna cry. wtf. why would you kill his lizard. even this movie’s jack seems like he thinks thats fucked up and hes a psychopath. also, lemme say, at this point, i think most of the book characters would beat the shit out of someone if they were mean to simon like that, bc the choir were his friends, and ralphs tribe respected him, sooooo
- why tf is it simons job to take care of the adult that shouldnt even be there? liek wtf hes grieving asshole
- no fucking duh hes scared of everyone but simon i would be too 
- honestly kinda glad they let ralph say fuck he deserved it
- “back off man im sick of ur shit and sos my gang” fuckin got em
- let me guess pilot dude is the new beast???
- honestly wtf is goin on lmao
- okay piggys actor actually made me sd when he was crying about his glasses so good job
- simon comin through with the glowstick. also, good job simon
- well at least the lord of the flies looks terrifying as always
- are samneric putting on warpaint this early?? bc i WILL NOT stand for that shit. i am a samneric STAN Ok??? they were two of the tHREE left when simon died who didnt become cowards and go savage. they wree LOYAL to ralph until they were LITERALLY tied up and FORCED to join jack, and even then they helped ralph!!!! so fuck u. samneric are better than that.
- oh simon :(
- im glad they actually kind of (?) shwed simon like with the pig head bc last movei it was just ike them flipping the camera from pig to si so idkk
- ok that was a pretty ralph move to bring up the fire 24/7 lmao
- piggytits?? tf
- simon with hus fuckin glowstick lmao
- awe, simon
- okay HOLY SHIT. the sounds of what i assume to be them fucking stabbing simon are horrific. and then that cut to simon’s fucking mutiliated corpse?? holy SHIT. like as much as im complaining, thats the gruesome shit i expect from this book. i was expecting them to shy away from it bc its so awful, but im SO glad they didnt, bc that gave me fuckin chills. finally, something i can praise them on. thats the lord of the flies i expect. 
- i feel bad for ralph.. good job
- ok good. samneric came back. good job again.
- ok. nvm. the disrespect to my loyal children. alright.
- okay that child screaming as hes being whipped?? wtf.
- ok that line of piggy being scared that the russians will take them nad make them go into the olympics? gold. 
- piggys laugh is so pure
- why the fuCK are they finding instruments lmao
- poor piggy
- did roger just wolf whistle at ralph what the fuck is going on
- holy SHIt this movie does not hold back on the blood. but, wheres my conch explosion?? if ur gonna show him getting hit u gotta show the conch exploding. although, the conch means like nothing in this movie lmao
- okay wow piggys dead body cool cool cool
- ralph fucking YEETED that kid to the ground lmao
- okay, ralph crying?? good acting
tl;dr/conclusion/my thoughts: hooooo boy so i see why everyone likes 1960 one better. 
first, lets start with the obvious: why this isnt lord of the flies. because its not. if this wasnt telling me that its lord of the flies, i would think of it as that, really. first off, the conch. the conch represents civility, it brings them together. its important. when piggy dies, it dies, representing how all civility is now gone. i maybe saw the conch three times this movie. didnt do anything.
second, the pilot, captain whatever. the point of the beast to me is that they made it up. sure, the corpse was real, but it didnt pose a threat, it was simply a corpse. they made it into what it was, therefore proving that they are the beast. sure, the pilot here was harmless, but he grbbed a boy’s foot and was therefore making himself a possible threat. maybe its not a big deal i guess.
third, the characters. the point of lord of the flies is that they are rich kids who havent gone through anything. theyre the perfect, spoiled kids who havent done anything wrong. half of them are in choir. chOIR. in this movie, lets take jack for example. they said he stole  a car and got sent to military school. no. the point of jack is that he was a perfect kid. leader of choir. he was manipulitive and got even ADULTS to trust him. its part of hs character, showing that this perfect choir leader kid went fucking insane to prove how literally everyone can be evil. also samneric???? the direspect!! they were loyal to ralph until they were tied up and FORCED to join jack, and even then, after roger like beat the shit out of them, they were STILL loyal. fuck you.
so those are the MAIN reasons why it wasnt lotf. 
now, what i liked i guess.
the swearing was NOT lotf, and it didnt fit with the story, but ill admit that i laughed, so i guess thats a plus.
second, i liked how they showed the gore, i guess? sounds weird, hear me out. lord of the flies is a gruesome, violent, awful book. theres descriptions of death in detail, and im so glad they showed it. when simon’s body was there, literally torn to shreds? the shock of it, the true savagery you see that these boys murdered him SO violently, is amazing, because thats the essence of lotf. simons death shows how theyve lost all their civility, and showing such a gruesome corpse really brings that through. so good job.
and now, of course, the obvious: thats not the characters i pictured when i read the story. simon doesnt look like that, ralph doesnt look like that, jack doesnt look like that.
 where did the choir go, too? forgot to mention that, and i think that also adds into the whole, theyre supposed to be perfect kids and then become savage thing. also, the choir was a group. they voted for jack and went with him for a reason. 
so yea, thats that. dont know why people would read this lmao but thats my thoughts!!!! i just need to keep myself busy when i watch movies and to make sure i focused, i figured id just write down my thoughts as i went. if u wanna watch for free, look up lord of the flies 1990 google drive. 
;)))) and yea im posting this at 230 am lmao why not
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aspiestvmusings · 4 years
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Personal, unpopular opinion on grief [ZEP S1 EDITION]
TRIGGER WARNING FOR SENSITIVE TOPICS: GRIEF & DEATH OF LOVED ONES. DO NOT READ IF YOU THINK YOU MIGHT NOT HANDLE READING ABOUT SUCH TOPICS. 
This post was inspired by ZEP (”Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist” & the Season  1 storyline...that is related to Zoey’s dad, Mitch & what’s we all knew would happen..soon/in the S1 finale. His death. And the grief..,      other characters feelings about what’s to come and (now) what’s happened. 
In this post I will discuss some of the things related to grief that the show/storyline (creator, writers) talk about, and that the cast talk about. How they talk about grief. And I will discuss some of the things related to death & grief...from my personal experience.  
But first, I'd like to start with a few important points: 
1. All humans (and all fictional characters) are different. So we all process things differently & act differently...in same/similar situations. This also applies to grief and grieving, and feelings about life & death. These characters way of dealing with grief is “valid”, and so is mine. But its just strange that only one POV seems to be represented on the show...mostly (and yes, we see it all through Zoey’s eyes, so it’s her POV that dominates) 
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What would have worked better on ZEP... IMO: 
What I would have appreciated from the show is for them to show both sides more. To have characters express different views  on grief, and death. More, and longer than they did with Deb in 1x11 & Howie’s speech to Zoey in 1x12. It would’ve been more believable if not everyone was seeing it the same way...if there’s been counter-arguments. 
Like...regarding the idea that only someone, who has had the exact same experience (lost their dad/husband), would understand you/your grief. They really hammered that “truth” with Zoey/Simon grief connection. And even a bit with Zoey finding another widow, Deb, to talk to her mom...cause she herself hadn’t lost a husband of 30+ years...so she would not understand (but, really, it’s more about her inability to deal with/express her emotions, and hiding them, and needing help with understanding others emotions...which her new sperpower is supposed to help her with]. They also had the whole family deal with it all pretty similarily. 
Just have one character tell Zoey that she doesn’t need someone with the same experience to have them understand her, and support her, and help her through this. That having the same experience does not automatically mean “instant connection”. Because...every death/experience is different, and so are Zoey’s & Simon’s...so it doesn’t even make sense to me that they’d automatically connect cause both lost their fathers. Why did no one point that out to her? Why did no one ever pose a counter argument? 
And why does she/the show seem to think that no one else has the same experience and/or would understand? I mean...most adults have lost someone by the time they turn 25... so if we’d get to know the characters more, we’d probably learn all of them have lost someone (maybe not a parent, but perhaps a grandparent?) They did that...a bit..with Joan & her mom story in 1x10. But again... too little, too “late”. She would’ve really needed to hear those things...sooner. Realizing that she can connecct to others...and others can connect to her. That all it takes is someone who wants to help her...and be there for her... whether they have the same experience or not. (maybe Tobin has lost someone, and it would’ve been helpful for Zoey to connect to him/talk to him?
This made it really hard (read: impossible) to “get” their grief bond, or take it “seriously”: Because the idea that no one questioned this just seemed ..strange. Sure..Zoey definitely believes this to be true, but... for no other character to question the validity of it... just seemed... too... strange. And since I personally don’t think that one needs to have the same experience to understand other person, and be the shoulder they lean on...but that instead it just takes someone who knows you and wants to be there for you... it was difficult to buy the whole “grief bond” they were selling. 
Which is probably why I never got their “connection”. And only saw it as lust from both sides, and just her/them displacing their greif...and nothing more. So that...and the fact that as human as having feelings for someone else while youre engaged is, I DO NOT support the storyline which tries to say that just because Simon is hot it’s ok for him to have an emotional affair with Zoey while he’s engaged. That somehow the hotness factor makes it OK, cause it’s “very human”, and “grief made him do it”. Nope...I’d quote Mo here, just replacing “powers” with “grief”. Mo’s words to her “Don’t blame the powers grief. This one’s all on you.” apply here...IMO. They both need to do better!
And I also had a hard time “believing” that a brain-person like Zoey (she’s a coder,  problem-solver) would be so irrational, and even though she’s also presented as “a hot mess kind of person”, her irrationality & behaviours just seemed not something I’d expect from someone like her. I, too, see world s black & white. So this is why to me two options remain: either she is just shouting cichees & lies to others OR she is out-of-character (by choice, not cause of grief or powers). I mean... she understood issues with grief and gave great advice to Simon since ep 1...yet she herself did the opposite. She made all the mistakes he had made (not learning from him, but choosing the same wrong route, not taking her own advice: talk to someone..etc). 
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For me, personally, I cannot “connect” with the characters (Clarke family...or the showrunner, whose said that his experiences/feels are represented by the characters) and their grief, even though I’ve had similar exprience (with my dad ... though it wasn’t a rare disease, but cancer). But no two people, not two different deaths are similar. And I guess I (and my family) are less emotional & more logical...when it comes to topics of life & death. Our (and especially mine) view is more like the other option Howie, the caregiver, presented to Zoey as they ate ice cream and talked about what’s to come..in the S1 finale. 
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I have, in general, a hard time buying the show, because I’m just too logical and brain person, and this is still a TV show...even if it’s based on real life events. It’s still adapted, and fictional elements have been added...to fit it for screen. So... since it was hard for me to believe that in all the prior months...ever since Mitch had been diagnosed... no one had really done any of the things they all suddenly came up with... 
Like realizing there are ways to communicate with Mitch ( or...try to communicate with him)...even if he can’t really speak or move. Suddenly Zoey has an idea to create a computer programme which lets her dad type his messages. Like..she’s smart, and tech savvy...and in no way do I find it believeble that she’d not thought of this before she got her superpower...and was motivated only by hearing his thoughts. Did no doctor inform them about the details of her fathers condition? Did everone claim he is already unable to understand speech etc...with 100% certainty? Did none of them just try to talk to him...etc...without being sure he can hear/understand...still? You know...like they encourage talking to people in coma, for example. 
Like...coming to the idea of a chairlift...before Mitch actually fell..while being helped up the stairs. What did they do all the prior months? When he’d already lost the ability to walk? When he still was able to talk? For a family that is so close, I find it quite unbelievable that they never talked about...anything. Even if they touched upon this in episode 1x11 when Zoey asked Maggie why they didnt do any of the planning sooner, she claims none of them expected it to happen so fast. Like...their doctor seems OK, so how are they so uninformed? When we know that Zoeys style is to read up on all the topics she wants to know about. She would read all the research there is...so she’d know... quite a bit. 
Like them thinking that a temporary improvement means a “cure”. None of them are clueless, they’re all smart, so I don’t also buy them not knowing that this is progressive, and there is no cure, and after the person loses as many abilities as Mitch had by the time we met this family (hard to swallow,  no speech...), then they don’t have much time left. Same with these smart people not knowing that based on several observations... most people report that dying people usually become “alert/more responsive”..just before the end. So... Mitch having a good day the day before he died was a clear sign he’s about to die.
Like...if we actually analyse it, it seems as if they “stood still” for months...ever since Mitch was diagnosed. And then suddenly...”thanks” to Zoey’s superpower, they start getting ideas, and do stuff, and talk to each other... which doesnt seem to have happened...at all... during all the prior months. How? 
It just seems too much “done to fit the TV format”, and it doesn’t seem to make much sense...actually... 
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MY OWN EXPERIENCES: 
I lost my first grandfather when I was a kid & he was only in his 60s (so quite young). That was an unexpeted & sudden event that no one saw coming (example: heart attack, stroke). I lost my other grandparents when I was in my 20s (they both lived a full life: 84 & 92...and were ready to go) & I lost my last grandma last year (she was almost 89...and outlived her husband by around 25 years)...after her health had been declining... for a while. And I lost my father about 3 years ago (he was in his 60s)... knowing he had max 6 months left by then. 
I will talk, a bit, about my dad, who died 3 years ago, in 2017, and my finnish grandma, who died last year...just a month before her 89th birthday. 
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With my dad... I had kinda lost him once before, because 5 years earlier he had a serious health issue, and his heart stopped on the operating table. But he was revived. And though he was in a coma for over a week, he did survive, and had no permanent damage. He had to go through extensive physiotherapy and learn to walk properly again, and hold a spoon again (fine motorskills), but his mind/brain/memory was unharmed. But...nonetheless, I sat beside him while he was in a coma, and I sat beside him after he had woken up... 
That health issue lead to his cancer diagnosis though...cause without it he’d never gone to see a doc on his own, and wouldn’t have known, probably. He was stage 3 when diagnosed, and though he tried all kinds of different treatment options, it progressed to stage 4 (that’s what lifetime of smoking does to your lungs!), and by 2016 he had metastasis in his spine..etc, and it was clear he had months/max a year left. It was a guesswork though how long exactly. 
But his medicine cabinet was more impressive than Mitch’s by the end. It got more serious at the end of 2016, and he basically survived with extra oxygene (help from a “ventilator”) & “morphine”. He probably would’ve kept himself alive for several more months, but he had a health issue in January 2017, and his body was just too weak (from chemo, from treatments from...) that he didn’t make it this time. And though I/we had longer than a year to “prepare”, these fictional characters also had time...
Yet, for me, personally, that death was not as hard. (in all honesty, I’d been expecting his cancer diagnosis since I was in highschool... I honestly couldn’t believe he had any lungs left...with his heavy smoking)
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For me, personally, the hardest was my other grandma’s end of life.. The one who died last year. But not the death...but her last years instead. And though my first grandma (who died almost 15 years ago) had memory issues during her last years, cause she’d had 2 stokes & she kept mixing up people & events (calling people by wrong name, mixing us up), she had my grandpa by her side...til the end. But with my other grandma... whose health had been declining...step by step..over past 5-10 years, it was different. To the point that my aunt/her daughter was her guardian, cause she wasn’t capable of making her own decisions anymore... even if at times she had a clear mind. And one of those times was her last, 88th Birthday in 2018. 
She never vebalized it...never was able to say the words (though she did talk... a bit), but I could see it in her eyes/look... she wanted to go... but “modern medicine” was keeping her body alive. And for me it was hard, because I am a supporter of a persons choice to choose assisted ending, but I’m the only one in the family who really supports this. And since she never actually said the words, and since I could not be 100% sure that what I thought I “read in her eyes” was what she was actually thinking, I could not be sure. But I considered her last 1-2 years of life just torture for her. So... as sad as I was, I was relieved when I got the call a year ago, on May 26th (exactly one month before her next birthday would’ve been)...that she’d died, I was happy that she “didn’t have to suffer anymore”. We scattered her ashes one month later, in last June, on what would have been her 89th birthday.
If my mom and aunt, who were there with her during her lasts days, would have told me the day before how “perky” she seemed the day before she passed, I would’ve known that it’s about to happen. But they told me when they called after it had happened. 
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Death has never been something to fear in our family. My grandparents (their story is like a fairytale, where after she was gone he had "no reason to hold onto life anymore”, so he went just 4 months later...) even prepped everything themselves. They were prepared, though Mo on the show is more prepared. They had everything chosen & organized & planned (the plot, the main details), so everything was done according to their “notes” basically. With others it’s been more general...like where (which cemetary) they wanna be buried and/or cremated. 
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        Yes, there is a lot under the (and etcetera)...from dealing with subsciptions on the persons name... to the bank... to job related stuff... next to the actual “burial event”. And while a good funeral home helps you a lot... and does a lot of the work for you (transportation...etc), then there is a lot that you/the family have to do before/after all this. But still... it’s not that difficult to get it all done. I did half the work when my dad died (lots of calls, emails, visits to offices/banks...etc).. to deal with all the paperwork and more. 
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I understand that I may sound like a cold person to many, but in my experience death & funerals have never been “end of the world”...like they’re often done on TV. Cause in most cases they only show death & grief in one way on TV.... as “end of the world drama”. When we need more POV’s like the other option Howie represented to Zoey. (and then the characters can choose which was is their way)
So...honestly, I have a hard time “connecting” with the ZEP season 1 grief  plot....the way it was done. Even though I can draw many parallels between Mitch(’s health) & my dad(’s health). We knew that he had not much left, but he ended up going faster & “unexpectedly” so he was gone about a month after his health took a turn to the worse...and we had known that all there was left to do was to wait... 
And yet, based on most of the online comments, reviews, etc..I’ve seen online, most find it easy to connect, and “feel the same way” and I seem to be alone in my “weirdness” and different look at the grief and greif storyline. 
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AM I ALONE IN THINKING THIS WAY? (MOST LIKELY) 
Did anyone else find it hard to believe the Zoey/SImon “grief connection” they tried to establish? 
Did anyone else find it hard to believe that such a close family had just been sitting & waiting for months (ever since last year, when Mitch was diagnosed), and not done anything....until Zoey’s superpower makes them magically start taking all sorts of steps? 
Did anyone think that the focus was not enough of the family, da/daughter, and grief...and too much on the love triangle? (even if the two storylines are connected...strongly)
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