#this is all for a setting of sorts but it mostly exists for really deranged stuff I don’t want to post very much. you can still get to hear

[therealnoot]

Hiiiii Noooot it's meeeeeee

Your characters are Valentino, Aurelius, Opal, and Guirec. Your questions are 9, 10, 15, 20, 24, and 30. Answer whatever for whomever :)

Howdy Howdy Tad!!!!!!

Oh boy oh boy! What interesting four characters you’ve given me. I’m gonna answer all the questions with all of them, I hope you’re prepared for this, it’s probably gonna be a bit long.

I’m gonna go sooo insane about some of them on some of these questions.

Also sorry to inform but I might not respond to any questions with Guirec because I want ‘em to stay a mystery.

9. How does your OC handle their physical Health? Do they take care of themselves?

Valentino is pretty good at taking care of himself. Mostly because he wouldn’t be able to be an Arena Boss if he had poor physical health. Since he’s a Benilon he heals pretty quickly and has some tough exoskeletal skin and so most physical harm done to him is easy to deal with. He’s also really good at fighting off sicknesses and is in overall a pretty healthy person! It definitely helps that he is almost always staying fit to survive in the Arena. He also has a good diet and an amazing sleep schedule since that’s also important to his health and a requirement to stay in the arena.

Kinda jealous over the fact pretty much all of my Arena characters have a better sleep schedule than me. Like they all sleep at least 10 hours and still have a whole day to do whatever else.

Aurelius is pretty good at managing his physical health. Since he’s the Royal Commander he kind of has to set a good example of what’s expected. Despite being kinda old he’s quite fit and strong for his age. Unfortunately he’s not the best at taking care of himself when he gets sick since in his mind he has no time for sickness and just acts like it doesn’t exist or keeps going until he literally cannot because of how sick he gets and he hates it. This kind of really sucks for him because Aelfine are kinda prone to getting sick more often than others. When it comes to other things like diet and eating he is kinda back and forth with it. Usually he won’t eat breakfast or lunch but Eloise always makes him breakfast and hunts him down so they eat together in the morning, otherwise he doesn’t eat anything till dinner where he then proceeds to eat as much as he can. His sleep schedule depends solely on Jinxes mood and whether or not she decides Aurelius doesn’t need sleep and makes him stand guard outside the palace all night.

Opal is okay at caring for herself I guess. She’s like brand new young adult or whatever and she doesn’t exactly live anywhere along with being a bounty hunter can really mess some things up but she gets by, sort of. She’s really a “ I do whatever I want when I feel like it “ so her entire schedule is ruined. Sleeps randomly, eats randomly, sometimes spends days on end doing nothing and then a couple days doing everything and somehow she’s still alive. Unfortunately she does have a disease that’s slowly eating away at her. Sorry Opal.

10. How does your OC handle their mental health? Do they take care of themselves?

This question is really easy. Unfortunately all of them have some kind of poor mental health.

Valentino may be physically healthy but he’s a little deranged and doesn’t have good mental health. He needs a therapist but that requires him leaving the arena or anywhere with a spotlight for once.

Aurelius suffers a lot from stress because of his Job. He probably has the best mental health out of all four of these characters but it’s still not GREAT. Especially when Jinx decides to damage it. She does that a lot to just about everybody including all of these characters

Opal is not okay. She needs a therapist and also probably learn yoga or see a doctor or something. She might have some kind of mental illness as well but I’m not entirely sure since her character isn’t developed much but on-top of her disease I think there’s also something really affecting her mind and making her sporadic and generally unstable.

15. Will your OC ever retire? Do you see them making it?

I don’t think Valentino will ever retire from the Arena, I doubt he will change very much either and the only way I see him retiring is through death. Unfortunately it happens like that and I wish it were different but AS OF CURRENTLY Valentino will only retire when death reaches him.

Tbh I don’t really think Aurelius would ever really retire but I definitely see something in his life changing and getting better or at least his job is more relaxing. You have no idea what I have planned for him in the future, it’s great.

I can definitely see Opal retiring from being a bounty hunter and maybe going into something like blacksmithing or clothes making but only if she gets the proper help she needs, otherwise I don’t think Opal will really change anything. And I don’t know if it means retiring overall but Opal is like the youngest on the list and the furthest from being able to retire at all.

Just know that it gets better. Guirec will make it.

20. If they Fight, what’s their weapon of choice?

Valentinos choice of weapon is the Soulmates Compound (bow) and Devotions bind (arrows). This weapons is specific to Valentino, however if he didn’t have access to this weapon he would use any bow and arrow or other long ranged weapons.

Aurelius can use just about any weapon decently since he trains people to handle multiple kinds of weapons, however his prefers weapon is either a Lance or great sword. He has his own custom made Shield-Lance that allows him to infuse his magic into it as well.

Opals weapon of choice is her Iron Maiden Dagger. If she unfortunately doesn’t have her dagger she can use just about any small blade or short ranged weapon.

24. Can they play instruments? If so, what do they play?

Valentino can play both a flute and tambourine. He can’t play them well but his Mother was teaching him how to play a few instruments.

Aurelius can play the drums! Kinda crazy but Aurelius has always been good at playing any kind of drum instrument. When he was younger he always played with handmade drums in his village. He is able to play bongo, bass and snare drums as well. If you put him in front of a drum kit he will learn to play it quickly as well! All Aelfine are naturally drawn to sound in the form of music and even Aurelius, the number one hater of my Aelfine Musician enjoys playing music.

Opal does not play any instruments. She has never had an interested either.

Guirec can play the triangle I guess

30. My OC and your OC are friends. This isn’t a question. I’m not asking.

Surely this can’t go wrong in any way possible!

Valentino really isnt a great friend at all. Any friends he makes he will inevitably throw them under the bus or leave them on the curb. Sure he can be a nice guy and genuinely enjoys being around others but he likes the attention. He might treat his friends more like people and consider their emotions more but at the end of the day if you were dangling off a Cliff and he had the choice to save you, he would save a bag of a million dollars before he bothers to think of saving you or his mother.

Aurelius would actually make a decent friend. He’s a little slow and kind of stubborn with what he thinks but his friends mean a lot to him and he would literally take a bullet for you, make sure you’re okay and then walk it off. He could get stabbed and he would just walk off the stab wound as long as you, his friend, is okay. I think most people would hesitate from being friends with or trying to interact with him because he appears intimidating and is sometimes really difficult to have conversations with but he is trying. He would be a good friend.

Opal would be a decent friend in the context of she would only be a bad influence on you. She would fully expect you to jump in the water after her. She would jump in the water if you jumped in first and then tell you how smart you are even if you are now being eaten alive by who knows what. Opal would watch you get stabbed and tell you how epic it is that you have a stab wound and completely ignore tthe fact you could probably die from that stab wound. If she was stable in any way I think she would be a way better friend but I would not advise being friends right now because half of being her friend is regretting whatever happens and the other half is being stuck in a long, deep conversation about the unfathomable and regretting it because now the paranoia and hysteria has set in.

Being friends with Guirec is like being friends with someone who is both a cat and a dog. Someone who is both introverted and extroverted. Being besties with the raging sun and mysterious moon. It can be great but also it can be awful and Guirec will probably leave you guessing whether or not you enjoy his friendship, company and extreme clinginess.

And yeah. That’s about it. I really hope I did miss anything otherwise I would be kind of sad 💔

Anywho here’s a small taste of some of my characters that just about nobody in the world knows about.

[twinkle-art]

im curious since Andromeda has terminal haunted by mom thoughts behavior and a weirdoes connection to Emet selch, what's her thoughts/relationship to hydaelyn/venat? cuz she kind of comes out the gate swinging and just straight up calls the player character her child in early visions. I suppose its equally likely hydaelyn was just too vague for a while for her to have very concrete feelings about it, and perhaps a more traditionally maternal style doesnt resonate enough to be very affecting, but im curious as to how she felt about All That

ohhhh this question is so fun i’m so tickled to know you’ve been paying attention like that 

so the short version is a little of column A, a little of column B– the truly overwhelming aura of maternal love that hydaelyn exudes unsurprisingly hit her like a goddamn truck, but perhaps not how you might expect. 

circa. ARR, when she was first given the title of Hydaelyn’s Little Superstar, she was very lost in the sauce of an uncomplicated Narrative of Heroism. as she does not come from a place where hydaelyn is even recognized as god, she was mostly caught up in the excitement of being chosen by a divine entity that she wasn’t even fully convinced was real, like, a week earlier. like, i think she would’ve thought of being referred to as Her child as something closer to set dressing, the sort of thing an all-powerful goddess is supposed to say, rather than something hydaelyn genuinely means and feels, let alone something she can actually internalize.

(a brief aside, thinking about this made me suddenly realize that in the absence of hydaelyn as an uncontested presence in the god-rejecting society she grew up in, the closest cultural equivalent would then be……. solus zos galvus. i will be unpacking the profoundly deranged implications of this parallel another time.)

however, you’re completely correct to hone in on the fact that hydaelyn’s maternal love being, like, what maternal love is actually supposed to be would throw andromeda, who’s never really had that modeled for her, for a loop. the slow, dawning realization that that’s how it’s supposed to feel would creep up slowly, without fanfare, only really crescendoing during endwalker

her time with venat was odd for her, in that it left her feeling deeply, deeply sad for reasons she struggled to articulate. perhaps this is a very revealing comparison to make, but i can really only liken it to the feeling of observing a closely-knit and happy family that you aren’t a part of and feeling an odd sense of loss that you didn’t get to have what they do. as a person, rather than a distant, inhuman entity, it was suddenly undeniable how genuine venat’s unfathomably deep love for the world, and her by extension, was, and i think it would probably make her heart ache to know that such a thing could exist, or that maternal love could come without the baggage she knows it to, and that she had had such a thing all along and not known it until right before she had to let it go

because everything is a part of my grand scheme (<- lie) i do love how this ties in very nicely with her relationships to both her real mom (lucretia) and her fake evil not-mom (emet), in that going into endwalker’s climax where she needs to finally see herself for who she truly is rather than simply The Hero, a huge part of her growing up is also seeing her parent as a full person with interiority as well. stripping the veneer of straightforwardness from how she understands and interacts with all three of these characters at more or less concurrent points in her arc simply feels right <3

[kinetic-elaboration]

August 10: Interview with the Vampire (1994)

Watched Interview with the Vampire (1994) tonight, which is pretty fitting after 2-3 days of gorging myself on IWTV (2022) to a frankly worrying degree. It was… interesting. I’m glad I watched it. I wouldn’t say it sparked anything in me though I can see how it would in other people.

Overall, it was just… too stylized for me, I think. It was 100% Gothic at all times but I never really felt the emotion of it; the style was like a pane of glass between me and any sort of feelings. It was highly dramatic, but not as unhinged as the show.

I didn’t really get into it until Louis and Claudia get to Paris and find the Theatre des Vampires, which I was not expecting to be the case. I think there was just too much restraint in the beginning, maybe? But Santiago’s little dance thing was some actual humor (not a lot of humor in this movie) and the theatre spectacle itself was pretty deranged. I liked Armand, and I actually got the chemistry between him and Louis. Like, that was pretty gay! “He wants you as you want him. He’s been waiting for you. He wants you as a companion.” Okay then!

And look, not me shipping Louis/Armand over Lestat/Louis, but that’s sort of the point, isn’t it? They really, really had to tone down the Loustat in this and it shows and it makes it a lot more boring, honestly. I think I was expecting something very charged, something by no means explicit but nevertheless sizzling with homoeroticism. Something straight people can ignore but no one with their hetero-goggles off could. But it was mostly just… Louis and Lestat existing near each other and I kept wondering why exactly. I got neither love nor hatred from them. I did a little more at the very end, their reunion, but even that felt like it hadn’t been earned, for me.

Maybe I’m not being fair to it. The extremely stylized nature of the whole thing sort of threw me.

Also I sort of get why people get frustrated with Louis and think of him as a whiny wet blanket. He was coming across that way a little bit! I liked him better at the end, setting the theatre on fire and then turning down Armand but for the most part not even Brad Pitt’s beauty and soft long hair was doing it for me. I mean, TV!Louis certainly loves his dramatic, pitiful monologue and his Pretension but he also decidedly has some verve to him. AND he’s hot. The clear winner.

Lestat making Claudia to quite literally babytrap Louis was pretty wild, I will admit that. Oh, she’ll be our little doll, our little daughter! Now Louis can never leave me! I mean, that’s the sort of fucked up move that makes Lestat interesting. For the most part I actually found him weirdly subdued, even though there was a sort of outrageousness to the performance… I don’t know how to explain. It was like a little bit of clownery sometimes, but I was not afraid of him. I wasn’t really afraid of anyone.

None of which is to say I disliked it. It was interesting. I guess I’m not really watching it fairly because I’m so deep in the show, which is so different. I can definitely see how people could get really into it but for me it was a little too stylized Gothic and thus hard to connect to emotionally. But they had a really short run time to cover a lot of ground and I’m sure that upped the difficulty immensely versus the more expansive, slow pace of the show.

[rachelraygifs]

What if 'Gundam SEED' was told from Flay's point of view? How would they approach it? Would it have been better?

Hey anon, took some time to think about this. I think this is a really difficult question because Flay's entire existence, from a writing perspective, was from the start to die. From Episode 1 of SEED she's set up as Kira's 'normie' love interest, but all of the promo materials had Lacus Clyne paired with Kira, even as the show was trying to get us to think he might end up with Cagalli (I wasn't really a fan of the reveal that they were secret super special twins and then also that she was a princess and then they completely sidelined her in favor of Gundam Jesus but that's a story for another day.)

So while Flay was sort of there from the outset, the marketing was saying Kira would end up with Lacus and if not, he'd be with Cagalli (secret twin not withstanding.) Flay never had any room to exist past that.

I think from a more human perspective, Flay would have been an interesting character to look at given that she was in a forced into a relationship with Sai (who IMO sucked but whatever) by her parents, which she seemed mostly? ok with? So it's not too shocking that she became deranged when her family bit it. I'm pretty curious what her family dynamic was, but the show doesn't really care about it beyond her father's death being the impetus for her to start sexually manipulating Kira to kill other Coordinators before he died himself.

That's really all Flay's character is. She's the normie love interest who exists to set up drama, show Kira fucks, give Kira a reason to kill people more brutally, and then when she outlived her narrative usefulness (because Kira needed to have a turn towards peace ala Lacus Clyne), die. To envision a SEED from Flay's point of view would require a significant rewrite of the story to the point where it wouldn't be Gundam SEED anymore. But given how I feel about SEED overall, that probably would have been for the better.

If the series did have to get written about Flay, and I had to do it, I'd probably give her or her family some connections outside of Orb. Maybe an industrial connection to ZAFT, or more likely, wayyy more connections to the Atlantic Federation. Make Flay an inheritress to her families resources and have her struggle with what she wants. Center on her trying to procure supplies for the Archangel or starting a war effort, or negotiating with the other Earth Nations. She can still be a war monger -- it might even be interesting if her goal is to functionally draft the Archangel into the Atlantic Federation which she's trying to whip up into a war frenzy, and then see how the main cast responds to that.

Ultimately though the show was way more interested with her weird psychosexual thing with Kira, so she had to die.

[0poole]

Soul

Breaking news, everyone: Pixar made another slapper.

I’m gonna get it out of the way first, but the only (and yes, only. Not like someone trying to say “only” even though they have many more nitpicks that they just don’t want to talk about) problem I had at all was that the super high realism of the settings of Earth kind of made the more cartoony faces of the people look a little more off. But, it’s kinda like the same thing people were talking about with that cat in Toy Story 4. It looks super real, which is impressive, but I feel like it was almost too real compared to the faces. Obviously it was too real compared to the supernatural settings because that was intentional, but yeah. It’s not even a big problem, it’s just the only one I can think of. I do think the realistic renderings of hair, light, water, etc at least work with cartoony stuff, but apart from that it looked almost like it could’ve been a photograph, with no exaggeration in the buildings or anything else.

I mean, I love the faces, so I definitely wish they went the extra mile showing extra personality and character in the buildings, as faces do with characters. Considering the faces matter like a bazillion times more, I still think they knocked it out of the park on the visuals. People with more investment and knowledge into the topic already said that the faces of any of the people of color felt cartoony and unique while also being true to life and respectful (My family recently stumbled onto some old animations from the 30s and lemme tell ya... We’ve come a long way), but seriously the characters that sold me on the visuals were the Picasso-esque beings who may or may not be the Gods of the universe maybe?

Spoiler boundary of course. It’s definitely worth a watch.

And that’s honestly what made the realistic world so much better. When the accountant guy went into the real world to set the count right, it was one of the most fun I’ve had just watching something. The sheer contrast between him and the world was so much fun, and it even solidified that those beings weren’t even acting in a different dimension or anything. They’re literally just beings that exist, meaning that all the other parts with the unborn souls and such are just as real as Earth. Or, even better, they’re the ones who can just casually rip a hole in dimensions. As far as depictions of Gods go, if they are even Gods at all, I think they’re one of the best I’ve ever seen. They feel like they could actually be how Gods actually exist, since all the commonalities of Gods involve supernatural power, which would suggest they’re supernatural themselves. I mean, I have a story with Gods in it too and they’re basically just that although admittedly a lot less imaginative.

With those guys being my favorite design, second place definitely goes to the lost souls, although obviously for more subjective reasons. 1) They’re purple, 2) They have one eye, 3) That eye is yellow which I always think is the best compliment to purple, 4) Tentacles, 5) Creepy in a kid’s movie. Franky, I would’ve made them a lot creepier, but even then they’re super creepy, if not visually then in their behavior. They’d just be kind of sad if they were just mumbling around, but since the first introduction to them starts charging at the main characters like a deranged monster. Considering how weird everything in that dimension is, finding something that isn’t nearly as innocent as everything else instantly invokes fear, since you have no idea what that thing can and wants to do to you. Sort of similar, I would’ve also made the “In the Zone” moments a bit more crazy and colorful, like when Joe fell through the void between the road to the Great Beyond and the You-seminar (is that how it’s spelled?), but these “I would do it differently”s might just be a fault of my design ideas or just subjective interests. I would’ve watched 2 hours of pure, nonsensical abstract worlds like the You-seminar with no explanation to how they work.

I definitely have a relief with the story, mostly entirely revolving around 22′s character. I was kind of worried she’d be too childish to really enjoy, but I feel like she was done really well. All the major historical figures’ remarks on how hopeless she were both funny and also really tied into her character “flaw” at the end as she was a lost soul. It might not be the most unique character archetype of all time, but it definitely makes sense, with all the people bringing her down implanting in her mind that she was an anomaly, and after a while was just sort of following it. Plus, she seemed genuinely interested in Joe’s weirdness, instead of being super mindlessly irreverent. And her being able to expand Joe’s understanding about his own world, like with the barber and his student, brings her up as more than a whiny, bratty child in the scope of the story. She didn’t JUST learn.

Even though I kind of expected it from the get-go, I’m also relieved that the movie didn’t shy away as much with the dark elements of death. It was kind of suggested that this wasn’t going to be a perfectly casual romp through a magical afterlife like Inside Out was with the mind because of the unborn souls unabashedly saying “Hell” in the TRAILER of the movie. I feel like that alone made the story super interesting, because it shows they’re actually going to be a bit more serious with things instead of just simplifying the unknowable complexities of the before & afterlife. Even with the dead souls going into the Great Beyond, it was a mix of being weirdly peaceful for some and super scary for others. My family thought it was peaceful for the most part, but my mom specifically though it was terrifying, and even though it’s a lot more peaceful than almost all other depictions of death, I can’t blame her. The souls were just kinda accepting it, like they’d been brainwashed or something, but still acknowledged that they were dead and were going into the afterlife. Plus, Joe, being the main character who we are supposed to sort of reflect in a way, was super freaked out by it, so that could easily suggest it’s to be afraid of and the other people are the weird ones.

I think the true message of the story being so strange was better too, because it would’ve been so boring if it fell into a super basic message we’ve heard millions of times. I feel like it has a similar sentiment to the basic messages, but is at least a more interesting way of saying it, if it is even like that in the first place, because it’s also somewhat vague in a good way. I think my brother/mother misinterpreted and simplified things a bit too much, where they thought it was sort of like a happier way of saying “accept your lot in life and don’t change it.” I could probably go on a full other rant about why I think this is wrong, but part of it is I don’t really know how they came to this conclusion in the first place, considering with that scene with that guy who threw the computers off his desk as his lost soul was cured (I guess you could call it that?), who obviously realized he wasn’t okay with his lot in life and was destined to change it. I think they sort of misinterpreted “the spark” and other things it as a 100% for-real, this-is-how-the-real-world-works sort of way, and not as much as a fictional way of saying things. Not necessarily symbolic, but I guess symbolic also? It has some of the same weird logical problems as the Cutie Marks from My Little Pony, except they’re obviously better since Cutie Marks determine your life down to your very job some of the time, while “sparks” are more vague and seemingly up to you. They’re more like when an unborn soul realizes there’s something on Earth they want to figure out, not necessarily their hobbies or jobs. For example, they kind of cited the barber character as the one who supported their point, but I think he does the complete opposite. He wanted to be a vet, but he ended up being a barber. But, they sort of assumed his “spark” was to be a barber, and that his personal interests didn’t matter because the “spark” forced him into a less favorable job. But, in reality, I feel like his “spark” is more his interest in love for the people around him, which is why he decided to get a more practical job to support his daughter (wife? one of the two) when he really needed to. Plus, he still enjoys being a barber because his devotion to love lets him connect to people as he cuts their hair. After all, he seems to be succeeding in his goal, since Joe was just like “Hey, let’s go see this guy he’s the exact guy we need!” People who don’t show love and interest for others don’t make that kind of impression in people’s minds. I feel like if we knew each story of everyone’s life down to the last detail we could fully determine what the mechanics of the world and its people are meant to say from a fictional context, but with such a limited selection I don’t think you can say something so sure. Sure, every choice in a movie is made specifically for a purpose, but I feel like if a movie tries to hard to be like “Oh but don’t worry here’s an exception” a million times it gets bogged down by its own attempt to make the message as obvious as possible.

Anyway...

There are also a lot of neat little details I loved, like how even though they did this for basically no other point in the movie, they made sure to include people from all around the world in that mess of dead souls, firmly sort of putting in the idea that the entire globe is in a sense one single entity that leads to the same place. They could’ve so easily just made everyone speak English for that throwaway scene, but I feel like including people from all around the world was very beneficial. Even the EXTRA little things, like the path to the Great Beyond looking like the neck portion of a guitar with the metal bits that separate the notes, or the facial features of the Gods blurring when they turned their heads in the other direction.

But yeah, who would’ve guessed Pixar made another good movie, right? Even then, Soul’s in the upper echelon of Pixar films. I really hope they (and Disney) realize they can go bonkers with a movie and still benefit/survive from it, since they’re so damn rich and inherently profitable. I think AAA animated movies like this that are the perfect amount of artsy are few and far between, and we need more of them. If anything, I hope they get more artsy, but I guess I’ll still never say no to a fun fantastical romp either. Basically, Pixar has looped me into watching any and everything they produce because it’s never “bad” I think. In the grand scheme of quality, even their worst work (Cars 2) is still not “terrible,” per se, even if it feels like it exists more as a cash grab than a genuine tale.

[ariyadaivaris]

i am putting this one under the cut. it’s a little too much to have out in the open, haha

i've been kind of expecting to have to write something like this for awhile. i mean, Nothing Lasts Forever, obviously, and this being primarily about 205, we've always been on the edge of it ending just because it's 205. so, i've always had the idea of what the end of this thing that holds a disproportionate amount of meaning to me would look like in the back of my mind. and it's been fizzling out for a bit. there's been some time to prepare. not that i HAVE prepared, but there's been some time to.

i don't really need to say 205 is important to me. it is! it's important to me in a way that is incredibly pathetic and strange. even after withdrawing somewhat, after losing enthusiasm and becoming a bit too paranoid to settle into enjoyment, after deciding to not say every thought that crosses my mind about the cruiserweights (which is still like, 90% of my brain activity, unfortunately), 205 has a hold on me like very few things have had. 205 is where i kind of sharpened my eye for characters and storytelling (and where i learned to see those things where they do not exist, lol), 205 is where i've met a lot of people who i consider sincerely very important to me, it is like... okay. listen. it's hard to say! because i feel like, this blog itself is kind of evidence of all i could say. i don't need to tell you that i like 205. you can see it, every week, in chunky paragraphs, whether you want to or not. it is something i hold dear. it is something that gave me friends when i was coming out of a nightmarish part of my life that damaged my ability to have friends at all. (a damage that persists.) it has given me something to hold on to when things are rough! it has given me a way to experience the range of human emotion in ways that are both painfully awfully real and shows in the theatre of fiction. it's...it's hard to state this. i'm very embarrassed to be sincere on the internet, and to express the full extent of my feelings on something, but 205 is like. a sort of bedrock in my life. it's. LISTEN it's important to me is what i'm saying here

i've spent the last five years thinking about 205 a LOT. specifically i've spent the last five years mostly trying to get back the feeling of the first two. which is sad, but that's wrestling, babey! it's a story like nothing i've ever experienced before, in good and shit ways. it's given me more of an appreciation for stories that drag things out to degrees you can't imagine, for stories that fuck up and disappear and falter. it has given me a lot of appreciation for wrestling as a whole, for what it can be when it's at its best, and for what it means to put your entire being into something when you know you're gonna lose, or fail, or go unseen entirely. for...for the work. the effort of things. it's really shaped my taste in things, i guess. always, always, always chasing that feeling i got seeing titus worldwide's story play out. or that feeling of tony preparing for that tournament match with drew and realizing that that story was never laid to rest. that feeling of cedric winning the title at mania and burying his face in mustafa's shoulder as soon as the bell rung. there's been a lot of disappointment, but it is hard for me to believe that it wasn't worth it, because there is nothing else like 205 when it's good. wrestling, generally, sure. but...205 is where i was first planted. it's where i've stayed. and i'm okay with that.

this isn't really anything, is it. i don't...think in coherent ways as much as i used to. my ability to hold a thread of thought has deteriorated. but. um. 205 is kind of over. it isn't LITERALLY over (though, without tony and ariya, i think maybe it's not that long until it will be), but the hope i've had of chasing the feeling of 2017 205 is officially dead. and it's a really weird place to be in. this has been, more or less, my life for the last five years. and it'll never be the same again. i've known for awhile that it was probably never going to be what i wanted again, and i've been trying to wrap my head around it for a bit. i think i'm kind of stubborn in this way! where, if you keep going and going and going, if you just hang on a little bit longer, then it'll be worth it. hope or sunk cost fallacy. who knows. but this is the door closing on all of that.

i can't say i'm upset that tony and ariya are leaving dubya! i think it's objectively a bad company and no amount of 205, good or not, is worth its continued existence. it sucks to lose a job, yeah, and with an employer that communicates as poorly as dubya, there's no way to get through the process unscathed. that sucks for the real people behind it, and regardless of my feelings about these two human dudes i know relatively little about besides playing some of my favorite characters that exist, i do hope they land on their feet. i am kind of relieved they're out of dubya, though. you know how it is. we've been through this before.

um. i'm probably not gonna watch 205 anymore. i've played with the idea before! but this is it. i have no reason to keep watching. i'll keep an eye on jiro, but i'm indifferent towards everything else it's doing, and i don't watch nxt on principle, so this is...kind of it for my engagement with the cruiserweight division as it exists canonically. christ that feels weird. if tony and ariya go somewhere else, i'll keep an eye out. my options for keeping up with wrestling are unfortunately pretty limited. i don't have the money to do it, usually, i don't know where the streams are, and i've mostly withdrawn from the Community so i don't know where i'd ask about other promotions, or if i'd be welcome. not anyone's fault! just how it is. i've met a lot of people i care about here, and i consider you all part of my life, but i mostly keep to myself. it's very lonely, but it's no one's fault but mine. i'm very bad at reaching out or keeping in touch. i want to. but i try to...maintain as little connection to the world around me as possible. just in case. there are a lot of friends i've made here that have stopped using this site, or that i've just lost touch with, or that i could have become closer with if i ever tried but i never had the guts for it. i have a lot of regrets about this. i'd like to talk to more of you one day. it's not like the door is closed entirely. i will hold out hope for this as well, though. it's what i do.

[later attempt to capture the feeling better: i hold 205 very dear to me. my biggest reason, i think, is that for a time before rabbit went down and i got in my own head, i was part of something. we were a community for a bit. a lot of 205's appeal, to me, was the camaraderie between people, this sense of everyone being connected and caring for each other even while feuding or struggling. and that was what existed as a fan of it. i was alone for a long time right before getting into 205, going through a very weird and bad relationship where nothing else existed outside of it and nothing of myself existed within it. and then, once i was back in the world, stranded and alone, i met a lot of people i consider my dearest friends through 205, people i still carry with me every day even if we don't talk for months, even if i avoid the possibility of getting too close now. suddenly, i was a part of the world again, and it was everything! it was...it was very special, to me. 205 has always been associated with that feeling in my head, that feeling of...i don't know exactly how to say it. the feeling of knowing you can come home now. it's something that dissolved a bit as everyone went their separate ways and as i kind of withdrew from the world again, it's CERTAINLY something that dissolved in 205, and i guess i've spent a lot of time chasing The Glory Days Of 205 Live Etc Etc because i miss it. no one's fault. just mine. maybe it won't be this way forever, though. i would like to think it won't. i want to be able to change.]

this is weird i don't really know how to say all of this, it feels both larger and smaller than it should, or than i thought it would. i'll still be here, this blog will still be up, i will still talk about wrestling and i will definitely be treating a lot of cruiserweights like my ocs, i was not joking about that. i have a very developed internal universe for 205 lol. quite embarrassing really! but. this is the end of something as well. the continued canon of 205, and my continued interest and hope in it. so. maybe i will rewatch it finally! having a set beginning and endpoint for it. 237 episodes, i think. which is a lot, but also doesn't account for all the matches there are to skip over or pretend don't exist lol. or maybe i will just sit with what there is and build from there. or maybe i will just keep it all to myself. i don't really know. i wasn't as ready to say goodbye as i thought i'd been.

um. man. i'll probably keep talking about it eventually, because i love the sound of my own voice, so this isn't really an end so much as a very long, clumsy, unnecessary rumination. but...well. i will miss 205, and i will miss experiencing it with everyone. i missed those things already. but i will miss them in a different way now. and we will all see what becomes of former 205 members, of wrestling, and of the people we are when we watch it together. i'll look forward to it. and i will see all of you around. thank you for staying this long, i hope some of my derangement has been fun to read about, or something you enjoyed or laughed at or thought about afterwards. i hope i've been a fun addition to the text, if nothing else! or a funny cringe compilation (the first funny cringe compilation to ever exist). either way. it's truly been an honor. thank you, thank you, thank you all. i love you very much. i’m not going anywhere and i will see you again, i promise you this. take care until then <3

[perspective-series]

Zapped Perspective (2)

By: @arc852 and @hiddendreamer67

Warnings: Fear, panic, arguments, treating someone like a pet, and feeling helpless.

(Check the reblog for the links to any future chapters)

——————————————————————————————————–

 Roman ran a hand through his hair, beginning to get desperate. The borrower in hand was, of course, no help either as Roman now searched through the house for a third time. It was evident that Logan was no longer here, as he didn’t respond to any of his calls.

“Okay, okay, no need to panic,” Roman spoke aloud, mostly to himself as he headed into the kitchen. “We’ll just...call the shelter. Maybe he ended up there.” Roman glanced down at the borrower in his hand as he grabbed his phone. “Maybe they’ll have room for you there, as well.” After all, Roman wasn’t exactly in the mood to take on another tiny right now.

 “What? No!��� Virgil started to panic as he watched the human pick up his phone. “No! You can’t tell anyone about me!” He didn’t care how crazy this guy was, he refused to be shown to the world because of him.

“Hmm? Oh, right, the wild thing.” Roman had almost forgotten with how quiet the borrower had been while he searched. “Don’t worry, the shelter staff are perfectly friendly, I’m sure they’ll take good care of you.”

 “No! You can’t do that. They won’t even know what to do with me!” They’d probably end up selling him to some lab or something. “Please, dude, just accept that Logan left and let me go!”

“No,” Roman said sternly, placing the phone to his ear. “Yes, hi, I’d like to report a missing borrower, have you seen him?”

 Virgil’s eyes widened and he began to shake. No, this stupid human was going to reveal his whole kind!

“He goes by Logan.” Roman’s spirits fell when the receptionist confirmed they hadn’t seen him. “Okay, well, do you know where I might find him? We went to bed last night and this morning when I looked into his enclosure he disappeared and this wild tiny took his place.”

 Wait...what was happening. This human was actually...holding a conversation with the shelter. There were no gasps or yells of amazement. They...They knew exactly what this human was talking about. 

 What was going on?

“Yes, I’ll try that.” Roman sighed, finding their advice to leave out his favorite food a bit juvenile, but Roman was running out of options. “Thank you, yes, please do. Now, ah, about this other one… what’s your policy on dropping off borrowers?”

 Virgil’s eyes widened. He didn’t know what was going on, but he knew he didn’t want to go to this shelter place. “No, please. Don’t take me there. Please.” Virgil turned to begging, not knowing what else to do.

“I- hold on one moment.” Roman put the phone to his shoulder, giving the borrower a sympathetic glance. The poor thing looked so scared, even if he was cute now that he’d stopped angrily yelling so much.

“I promise you, you’ll be okay.” Roman quietly assured him. “They’ll help you find your human or a new human as the case may be.”

 “No! I don’t want a human! I just want to go back home!” Virgil yelled, shaking in the human’s grip. Tears started rolling down his cheeks. “I just want to go back home.” Wherever that was, at this point.

“Ah-” Roman raised the phone to his ear. “I’m sorry, I’ve got to go.” He quickly hung up the phone, his concern wholly focused on the crying borrower in his hand. Roman shushed him, holding him to his chest as he would do to Logan.

“It’s alright, don’t panic, okay little guy?” Roman rubbed his fingers gently down the borrower’s back. “You’re gonna get home.”

 Virgil flinched away at the fingers. “N-Not if you take me to that shelter or whatever.” Virgil managed to say.

“...okay.” Roman felt his heart go out to the borrower. He had always been a sucker for them. “Okay, look, if it’s bothering you that much, you don’t have to go to the shelter, okay?”

 Virgil let out a sigh of relief and then paused. “...Does that mean you’ll let me go?”

“No no, a little thing like you couldn’t possibly go out on your own.” Roman shook his head. He didn’t even let Logan do that, and this one was clearly deranged. “But, I promise you, I’ll help you find your home.”

 Virgil bit his lip but he supposed that was better than going to that shelter. He was starting to suspect this was all some underground thing. A group of people who had found out about borrowers or something. Though...that didn’t make a load of sense either.

 “I’m on my own all the time.” Virgil decided to say. 

“Wait, you don’t have a forever home yet?” Roman gave him a pitying look, debating in his head. “I mean, I suppose if you aren’t taken we do have room for you to stay here… I’ll have to check with-” Roman paused, once again distracted by the devastating notion that Logan was missing.

 “What? No, I-I can’t stay.” Virgil spoke, panic building up. “I happen to have a forever home already, it’s called none of your business, now let me go.”

“No no no, that’s not how this is going to work,” Roman said sternly. “I can return you to your home, but you’ve got to cooperate with me, are we clear?”

 Virgil ducked his head, tensing at Roman’s tone. “...Fine.” He said, not wanting Roman to get angry again. He could feel the bruise from where Roman had squeezed him before and winced.

“Excellent.” Roman praised, glad they were getting somewhere. “Now, where do you live? Who’s your owner?”

 Virgil grit his teeth. “Like I keep saying. I don’t belong to anyone.” Why couldn’t this human understand that?

“Look, you can either tell me your address or I can just drop you off at the shelter.” Roman reminded him.

 Virgil deflated. “I-I don’t know it,” Virgil admitted. Why would he ever need to know the address of the building he lived in?

“...of course you don’t.” Roman sighed. “Alright, well what do you know?”

 Virgil thought for a moment. “Well...it’s a student building, for a college. And the human who lives there is named Patton Hart.” Virgil said but he didn’t really know much more than that.

“Alright, I guess we’ll start there.” Roman moved over to his desk, setting the borrower down and pulling up his laptop. He typed in the name ‘Patton Hart’, but it yielded no results. The internet could be cruel.

Instead, Roman pulled up pictures of the local university, clicking on the ones of the dorms. He turned the page towards the borrower. “Any of these look familiar?”

 Virgil sighed in relief, glad to finally be put down. He took a few steps away from the human but looked at the laptop when asked. “Uhh, no...it doesn’t.” That was definitely not where he lived.

“Okay, well, what about this?” Roman asked, quickly pulling up the next location.

 Virgil shook his head. “None of this is looking familiar.”

“We’re going to need a new tactic.” Roman frowned. “How did you get here, anyways? Because this is the closest university and I doubt you could even walk that far on your own.”

 “I don’t know,” Virgil said, looking up at the giant but not meeting his eyes. “I went to bed in my own home last night and then just woke up in that dollhouse this morning.”

Roman paused. “You just...woke up there? What? That doesn’t make any sense. And it’s not a dollhouse, it’s a borrower house.”

 “Looks like a dollhouse to me,” Virgil muttered. “And I know it doesn't make sense! That’s why I’m so confused about how I got here!” And it didn’t help when this human kept trying to make him believe everyone knew about borrowers.

“...wait a second.” Roman’s eyes widened in realization. “If you just appeared, and Logan just disappeared, then maybe what we’re dealing with is some sort of dimensional prince and the pauper.”

 Virgil blinked. “...Come again?” Great, this human was even crazier than he thought.

“Well, you’re all freaked out about this borrower secret business, and I've never heard of an actual wild borrower before, so I was assuming you just hit your head and were insane.” Roman shrugged. “But think about it! What if you’re actually from another timeline or something where borrowers haven’t been discovered?”

 “That’s...no, you’re crazy.” Magic didn’t exist, different timelines or whatever didn’t exist. This human was just messing with him.

“Alright, fine.” Roman leaned back in his chair. “Then tell me about your owner, Patton.”

 “Okay, for the last time.” Virgil glared. “Patton isn’t my owner. No one is! He’s my friend.”

“Yes, alright, but what about the other borrowers in your building?” Roman asked. “Do they have owners?”

 Virgil shook his head. “Well, for one, there aren’t any other borrowers in my building. And second of all, no other humans know that a borrower exists.” Virgil crossed his arms. “Why do you insist on forgetting that fact? Or better yet, why do you keep trying to convince me that every human knows about borrowers?!”

“Because they do!” Roman threw his arms up in exasperation. “Do I need to prove this to you? Here, come on.” Roman grabbed Virgil off the table, heading towards the front door.

 Virgil yelped as he was grabbed once more with no warning, pushing against the fingers. And then he saw that the human was heading towards the front door. “No! Stop, you can’t.” 

“I can.” Roman didn’t stop his pace. “I promise you, a borrower is nothing they haven’t seen before.”

 “No, no, no, no, no! Please don’t show me to anyone, you-I-” Virgil was full-on panicking now. He couldn’t be the reason borrowers were discovered and create the world this guy kept going on about. 

“Okay, calm down!” Roman hastily instructed, not wanting to send this poor little guy into an attack. He carefully put on his coat, tucking Virgil into the pocket. “There, you can be all secure while I show you the town, alright?”

 Virgil squirmed in the pocket. He still didn’t like it, but at least the human wasn’t walking around with him in the open. “Fine...but you better not take me out.” He said, despite knowing he couldn’t do anything about it.

“I won’t,” Roman assured him, finding this procedure ridiculous as he finally opened the door.

 Virgil stilled as he heard the door open. He didn’t exactly know what the human’s plan was at this point but he was nervous to find out.

Roman waved at his neighbors, stepping out onto the lawn. He began to point out every piece of evidence he saw, missing a few because to him they were so trivial.

“There’s the little borrower pathway.” Roman pointed near his feet, watching his step. “That woman has a borrower, you can see them peeking out of the carrier.” Several passersby had borrower carriers, actually. Roman should have thought to grab his own since a pocket could be so unsafe. 

 Virgil peeked out at Roman’s words, eyes going wide with complete shock as he took in the sights around him. “But...no, this...this can’t be real…” But it was hard to deny what was right in front of him. Borrowers everywhere, all with a human, most in a cage. The sight alone made Virgil’s heart sink. 

 That parallel dimension business the human had been talking about was starting to make a lot of sense. 

“Just down there is the borrower agency, we can go visit it if you’d like.” Roman glanced down at his pocket. “Unless you’ve seen enough?”

 Virgil nodded, silently slipping back into the pocket, feeling defeated. “Yeah...I’m done.”

Roman returned to the safety of his house, pulling Virgil out to rest in his cupped hands. “Alright, now do you understand? I’m right, aren’t I? Your world isn’t like that at all.”

 Virgil looked down, still trying to comprehend everything. “I...no, it isn’t. Borrowers aren’t pets in m-my world.” It felt weird saying that but he supposed at this point he couldn’t deny it.

“That’s so bizarre.” Roman breathed out. He didn’t like the thought of that world, as he might never have met Logan. “Is it an alternate universe, or are you from the past? Do you have television there?”

 Virgil nodded and again, he never thought he would be asked a question like that. “Yeah, it-it looks like we have the same technology as everything.” Virgil rubbed at his eyes. “This is crazy.” He muttered.

“How many borrowers are in your world, then?” Roman felt as though the floodgate of questions had been opened. “Do you really live in the walls? How do you survive?”

 “I’m not sure how many there are but I survive by borrowing food and such things to use.” Virgil shifted uncomfortably at the question being asked. He was just too afraid at this point to not answer them. Was this human planning on making him a pet too? To replace Logan? He didn’t even know the human’s name.

“But how?” Roman insisted, looking around his apartment. “You don’t have borrower platforms. How do you get around? How do people not notice their stuff going missing?”

 “I...have a hook. And we only take small things that humans wouldn’t miss.” Virgil looked up at the human. “Let me ask you a question, how can you treat a sentient being like some pet?”

“Oh, no no no, you misunderstand.” Roman gave an awkward laugh. “We don’t treat borrowers like ordinary pets; Logan certainly isn’t a dog. No, we just take care of them, and keep them with us.”

 “Yeah and keep them in cages and stuff against their will. Sounds like a pet to me.” Virgil snarked back. He at least wanted Roman to admit that’s how everyone treated borrowers in this world.

“It’s not a cage- well, okay, sometimes it’s a cage,” Roman admitted. “But most of the time it’s a borrower’s house, and they’re perfectly comfortable and very practical.”

 “Uh-huh. Doesn’t matter. You’re keeping them here against their will and that’s wrong.” Virgil crossed his arms. “What? You think Logan is actually happy here?”

“Yes, Logan is perfectly happy here,” Roman assured him, walking further into the house. “I know this all must look frightening from your perspective, but you are blowing this way out of proportion. Borrowers like being companions in our world. They’re well fed and well taken care of- heck, sometimes I wish I was a borrower just to have it that easy.”

 “Right, because being at the complete mercy of a human and having to do whatever they say in fear of punishment sounds like such a great life,” Virgil said bitterly.

“Woah, hold on there.” Roman looked appalled. “I don’t punish Logan.”

 “I find that hard to believe.” Virgil glared at the human. “After all, you punished me, when I tried speaking up earlier.” And he was still worried that was going to happen.

“That’s just because I lost my temper,” Roman admitted, looking slightly ashamed of himself. “You kept talking about Logan is such a terrible manner, and I was stressed about finding him, and you had quite the attitude… but I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have lashed out like that.”

 Virgil furrowed his eyebrows. He had expected the human to apologize...but still. “Yeah, well, it only takes one loss of a human temper to end a borrower's life, so my point still stands.” Virgil sneered.

 “Besides…” Virgil looked away. “You can’t tell me, that in a world like this, every human treats borrowers like a ‘companion’ and not a pet or even a toy.”

“Well, no,” Roman confirmed. “But not every human treats other humans like a person, either. Besides, it is a bit hard to resist at times. You guys are just so cute.” Roman emphasized this by ruffling the borrower’s hair.

 Virgil tried pushing the hand away. “You’re just proving my point! I can’t stop you like this and I doubt Logan likes this either!”

“Sorry.” Roman pulled his hand back, forgetting this wasn’t Logan. “And Logan likes this, he just doesn’t admit it.”

 “Did you ever think he doesn’t admit it because he actually has nothing to admit?” Virgil asked, fixing his hair. “But of course you didn’t, all you humans care about is yourself.” Except for Patton, of course.

“That is not true.” Roman insisted. “I care very much about Logan.”

 “Oh, I believe you. I believe you care about Logan like a pet. Certainly not like a fellow human.” Virgil was starting to wonder where this bravery was coming from.

“Well he’s not human, so that wouldn’t make sense, but I’m telling you that you just don’t get it.” Roman shook his head. “It- it’s not all that bad.”

 “Right, cause you know best. Gotcha.” Virgil deadpanned.

“You are insufferable,” Roman muttered, already eager for these borrowers to switch back so he could be back with Logan. Even Logan wasn’t this annoying.

 “Right back’atcha.” Virgil glared. 

[aion-rsa]

The 21 Best Christmas Horror Movies

https://ift.tt/3lZGPFt

Technicolor lights are about to illuminate every other home in the neighborhood; carolers are marching through the streets; even that old tree in Rockefeller is shining brightly.

For some folks, that’s enough to make you want to grab an axe. But don’t do that. Watch demented men dressed as Santa Claus or a demon Krampus indulge your Anti-Christmas sentiments with maximum gore. Indeed, this list isn’t about the most charming, heartwarming, or schmaltzy Christmas viewing traditions. Nah, this is about the 20 grossest, nastiest, and all around most fun Christmas horror movies. The kind where the greatest gift you’re going to get on Christmas morning is escaping with your life and maybe some psychological triggers whenever you see jolly men in red suits.

Yep, these are the very best Christmas horror movies. Ho. Freaking. Ho.

Anna and the Apocalypse (2017)

Almost certainly one of the sweetest, most positive, and upbeat Christmas movies on the list is this wonderful feel good musical romance from director John McPhail, which also happens to be a zombie movie. It follows a group of friends in a small Scottish town who are just about to finish school and are making plans for the future when a zombie outbreak lands. 

Incredibly catchy tunes which take inspiration from Buffy musical episode Once More With Feeling, mix with inventive festive kills – zombie snowman decapitation is a highlight – in a way that manages not to tonally jar. It’s mostly thanks to the super-likeable performances of the young cast, headed up by Ella Hunt, and the teenage troubles, romances, and heartbreak which form the backdrop of the movie. Paul Kaye also pops up as the school’s tyrannical headmaster – his musical numbers aren’t the best but he brings cartoon villain energy to an unusual but rather adorable Christmas horror that’s way better than you might expect.

– Rosie Fletcher

Better Watch Out (2016)

Home Alone is surely one of the most popular and iconic Christmas movies of all time, though it is not, of course, a horror. However, if it was, it would look something like Better Watch Out, a slick reinvention of the home invasion sub-genre. Olivia DeJonge plays babysitter Ashley, who attempts to protect her charge, 12-year-old Luke (Levi Miller), when they are threatened by intruders in his home. But all is not as it seems.

DeJonge and Miller spar beautifully in a movie which plays with gender and coming of age tropes and includes handfuls of gruesome set pieces, while Ed Oxenbould brings comic relief. This is clever, funny and gruesome stuff from director Chris Peckover which might not become a new Christmas tradition but should definitely be watched at least once.

– Rosie Fletcher

Black Christmas (1974)

Getting stabbed by a unicorn head to the tune of carolers singing “Silent Night” is probably not how you want to spend Christmas Eve. This pre-Scream holiday slasher claims its victims in a sorority house haunted by creepy phone calls (sans ghost mask), demonic noises, bodies eerily shrouded in plastic wrap, and one perverse killer whose voice alone is enough to freeze your blood.

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By Mike Cecchini and 4 others

When an unidentified caller keeps harassing your entire sorority house with obscene things you can only half-understand (because he sounds like a deranged Donald Duck that laughs like the Joker), you should run even if it is 10 degrees outside. The blizzard of murders keeps raging with one victim dragged screaming by a hook, and another bludgeoned to death. Never mind the one suffocated by plastic wrap and left next to the window like the vacant face of a doll staring out into the night. You’ll hardly sleep in heavenly peace after this one.

– Elizabeth Rayne 

Christmas Evil (aka You Better Watch Out) (1980)

In his one and only film as writer/director, Lewis Jackson crafted a smart and clever black comedy that’s more character study than straight horror film. John Waters insists it’s a comedy about a closeted transvestite (of a sort), but it’s much more than that—it’s the Taxi Driver of Yuletide shockers. Brandon Maggart plays a man who takes Christmas way too seriously. His home is filled with bright holiday decorations all year-round while Christmas carols are playing on the stereo. Santa is his role model, a symbol of all that is good and just in the world. He even works at a toy factory.

He so identifies with Santa, he takes to spying on the neighbor kids, keeping his own carefully annotated naughty and nice lists. But when he recognizes the level of cynicism and hypocrisy among his co-workers, bosses, and the people around town as the most joyous time of the year approaches, well, he goes a little funny in the head. He reaches for the suit and beard and axe, determined to reward the good and punish the evil.

Maggart has since tried to desperately distance himself from the film, but he gives a remarkable performance here as a completely isolated figure with a head swimming with both joy and rage. In the end, the film remains king of the sub-subgenre. Screw It’s a Wonderful Life and Rudolph. Apart from Blast of Silence and Invasion U.S.A., Christmas Evil is the only holiday film I watch annually.

– Jim Knipfel 

A Christmas Horror Story (2015)

Admittedly, a number of horror-based Christmas movie have gone with the anthology angle for their storytelling. Hell, this isn’t even the only anthology film on this list. A Christmas Horror Story may not be on a lot of people’s radar, but it’s a worthy installment that goes to some unusual places purely because both the Christmas and anthology playgrounds have gotten so bloated at this point. This film also benefits from being executed by a cabal of directors who are responsible for directing some of the best horror movies to come out of Canada in passing years, such as Splice, the Black Christmas remake, and the Ginger Snaps trilogy.

A Christmas Horror Story deliciously uses a radio DJ (William Shatner) as the connective tissue that holds together the four stories that comprise the film. Parables on ghost possession, clone doppelgangers, Krampus, and zombie elves all get their due here. The film also has a pretty inspired ending that actually casts the picture in a whole new light. It’s got Santa Claus fighting Krampus. What’s not to like?

– Daniel Kurland 

Dead of Night (1945)

Never play hide and go seek in a house where someone was murdered. While it might be best known for Michael Redgrave’s night-terror-inducing ventriloquist dummy scene that sparked the phobia of possessed puppets, Dead of Night also invites you to a Christmas party with a spectral guest. Spacecase Sally’s genuine terror at realizing what she thinks she saw is what she really saw will forever have you second-guessing shadows creeping in the cold. 

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By Delia Harrington

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By Don Kaye

What is obvious in this scene—encroaching darkness and shadows looming over what a place you know is haunted without ever having to hear the big reveal—is hardly as chilling as what is not so obvious until the truth silently materializes. The ghost of the little boy plays hide-and-seek with the other children as if warm blood courses through his veins. Unlike many stereotypical see-through phantoms of the era, this one doesn’t have that telltale translucence which would set off a chorus of screams. Being almost disturbingly normal is exactly what makes him so terrifying. 

– Elizabeth Rayne 

Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Eyes Wide Shut was the non-denominational star at the top of Stanley Kubrick’s Christmas tree. Originally conceived as a Woody Allen vehicle, it almost starred Steve Martin after Allen insisted on reading the script from right to left. It is as much a cautionary tale as Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, bringing the whole family together with a different Christmas tree in almost every frame.  

Kubrick pours on the cheer from the opening sequence at the Christmas party where the first gifts are unwrapped, and oh boy are they unwrapped. Bill Harford, played by Tom Cruise, dives right into the muffled spirit of giving after he performs a more than charitable deed for the party’s host, played by Sydney Pollack.

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Harford spends most of the film looking for the perfect gift like a slow motion version of Jingle All the Way, rushing around from New York City’s famous toy repository FAO Schwartz to downtown specialty shops, to the suburbs, where he can find collectors’ editions. Cruise pays Harford like a wooden windup toy, and not a particularly cute one, either. In spite of all the colorful lights and trips above and below the rainbow, Harford just can’t get into the Christmas spirit. He’s not even moved by the uplifting seasonal tunings of “I Want a Boy for Christmas” by the Del-Vettes. He recovers his seasonal facilities while humming along to the chant during the climactic illuminati sex party, though! The song is actually “Here Comes Santa Claus” sung backwards in Latin, adding more menace to the proceedings than Silas Barnaby brought to Toyland in The March of the Wooden Soldiers.

– Tony Sokol 

Gremlins (1984)

Santa doesn’t exist… unless it’s your father in a red suit who met his untimely end trying to slide down the chimney with a sack of presents before getting stuck. Don’t tell that to the innocent bat-like ears of a harmless (for now) Mogwai. It’s exactly the kind of story you expect to hear while hunkering down in the shadows with a flashlight while a bunch of leathery green things with too many teeth ransack the neighborhood.

And as for Santa? That smell coming from the fireplace weeks later was no dead cat. Worst. Christmas story. Ever. 

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By Michael Reed

This movie should be on every hardcore horror fan’s holiday playlist just for the musical monstrosity of those reptilian things decked out in Santa hats and earmuffs singing “Deck the Halls” at the neighbors’ door, sheet music and all. This is continuing proof that animals have a sixth sense, because her yowling cat senses something off about the voices warbling “Joy to the World” outside. She’s right to have an aversion to Christmas carolers.

– Elizabeth Rayne 

Holidays (2015)

There have been so many holiday-themed horror films at this point—reaching Christmas and going far, far beyond that—so why not make an anthology film that takes that idea to the extreme? Holidays hits the expected staples such as Christmas, Halloween, and Valentine’s Day, but part of the fun here is how holidays with lesser expectations like Easter or St. Patrick’s Day deliver some truly horrifying content (seriously, the St. Patrick’s Day segment is disturbing, bonkers chaos).

The Christmas segment comes courtesy of Scott Stewart (Legion) and has Seth Green trying to survive the holiday as he attempts to get his son the perfect gift. Stewart’s installment feels very reminiscent of a Black Mirror episode with virtual reality, consumerism, and the dangers of mob mentality all playing their part here.

A lot of these anthology films also try to bank off of the name recognition and notoriety of the assembled directors, but Holidays proudly features a collection of mostly fresh faces (although Kevin Smith and Starry Eye’s Kevin Kolsch contribute segments). It’s fun to discover a bunch of new blossoming talents here.

– Daniel Kurland 

Jack Frost (1997)

This ain’t the cringeworthy father/son bonding vehicle starring Michael Keaton. No, this is the Jack Frost where the killer snowman’s nose functions as both a killing tool and a device to sexually assault his victims. All square? But hey, at the least the film isn’t afraid to ride its ridiculous premise as hard as possible.

First of all, an actual killer named Jack Frost crashes into a truck of “genetics material” that causes him to transform into this cold abomination in the first place. That sets the tone pretty nicely for the abundant murders, sex, and plot holes that plague the town of Snowmonton (yup). It’s hard to believe that this film got made, with all of the visuals being some real spectacles that you don’t typically see in the horror genre.

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By Daniel Kurland and 3 others

Jack Frost is the perfect Christmas horror film to shut your brain off and watch, or the title that you should be selecting right in the middle of your deep eggnog haze. It’s utter nonsense, but it knows that it is and has tons of fun with itself. We need more talented individuals trying to tap into the killer snowman subgenre. There’s still a true classic waiting to come to life here.

– Daniel Kurland 

Krampus (2015)

Morbidly funny in its anti-holiday sarcasm and ridiculous demons, Krampus is like a mashup of the Griswolds, the Grinch, and every mythical beast that has ever been rumored to devour children on the naughty list. You’d rather get coal in your stocking than a killer jack-in-the-box jump scare… or find chilling hoof prints in the snow that are definitely not from Rudolph.

Krampus is one Yuletide monster actually worse than the Grinch. The grisly inspiration for this tale is a Germanic one about a hairy, horned, and cloven-hooved demon who stuffs naughty children in his sack and either beats them with a wooden switch or eats them (depending on who you ask). Also, his heart won’t grow three sizes from gorging on human flesh, either.

This version of Krampus is also hungry for anyone who’s lost their holiday spirit—whether or not you otherwise qualify for the nice list. Watch this with the lights off for the full effect of the power outage that works to the creature’s advantage as he goes hunting for holiday nonbelievers. Kids, don’t scorn Santa or Krampus will come to collect you.

– Elizabeth Rayne 

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

There are some of us who know this movie verbatim and to the point where we will shamelessly break out singing “This is Halloween” and raise Jack’s quasi-Shakespearean monologue from the dead even in the middle of July. Or keep warning people that tragedy’s at hand. Or correct anyone who says there are 365 days until next Halloween by growling “364!” The stop-motion animation saga of the talking skeleton turned “Sandy Claws” bewitched an entire generation of ‘90s kids. 

Even people who hate Halloween will stare with delight and awe when Jack’s skull bursts out of a snowdrift, and he first puts colored lights in his eye sockets and explores every “what’s this?” in Christmas Town like a spook in a coffin shop. You just can’t help but love the adventurous skeleton, even if he does end up making haunted houses out of people’s living rooms on Christmas Eve. Whether you’d rather be making Christmas with strangely somber carols, reanimated reindeer or toys that bite back, it’s now an officially unofficial holiday classic.

– Elizabeth Rayne 

P2 (2007)

On the sillier end of the Christmas horror spectrum comes P2, a film named after a section in a parking lot, starring Wes Bentley and Rachel Nichols. She’s a business woman trapped in a multi-story parking garage on Christmas Eve, he’s the insane Security Guard who’s obsessed with her and really wants her to try his festive eggnog, so to speak. 

Camp and gory, this is the directorial debut of Franck Khalfoun who would follow it up with a remake of Maniac. The movie was co-written by Alexandre Aja who made one of the greatest cat-and-mousers ever in Switchblade Romance. The set up is formulaic, perhaps, but the game performances and relentlessness of the action makes this worthwhile. And if that’s not enough check out a deranged Bentley dressed as Santa, for the angel on the top of the Christmas tree.

– Rosie Fletcher

Rare Exports (2010)

There couldn’t possibly be a more sinister place to search for Santa’s ancient burial mound than in the frigid depths of Lapland. It’s the same supposedly enchanted place Dick van Dyke hiked to in the search for Santa in an ‘80s musical Christmas special, except this time you won’t find him in a cozy cottage with stockings hung by the chimney with care. You won’t find the guy in red from the mall, but anything that takes a disembodied pig’s head as bait couldn’t possibly be jingle-belling on a sleigh with eight tiny reindeer, especially when he seems to have a ravenous appetite for said reindeer. 

This time, “the spirit of the season” is literally the most malicious Christmas spirit that has ever terrorized the Yuletide. Even if you watch the whole thing in Finnish and don’t understand a word except the screaming, the ghost of the child in you that really did believe there was a guy in the North Pole will be forever traumatized. This glaze-eyed zombie incarnation of Mr. Claus doesn’t laugh like a bowl full of jelly. You better watch out, indeed.

– Elizabeth Rayne

Santa Claws (1996)

You do have to wonder what happened to John Russo along the line. 30 years after co-writing Night of the Living Dead, he came up with this decidedly sleazy but sadly unoriginal wonderment, which was much more focused on boobs than Yuletide butchery. In what by that point had become a battered cliché of the Slasher Santa subgenre, a young boy named Wayne (Grant Kramer) sees his mom having sex with a man wearing a Santa hat (!), and so murders them both. I’m not exactly sure how this transference would work in Freudian terms, but when he gets older, he a) becomes obsessed with a low-budget scream queen named Raven (played by low-budget scream queen Debbie Rochon) and b) decides he’s Santa.

As you might imagine, stalking someone when you’re wearing a Santa suit is no mean feat, but Wayne gives it his best shot. Most of the film, however, focuses on Raven and her extended family as she gets undressed a lot and wonders not only why that creep in the Santa suit keeps showing up everywhere, but why everyone around her keeps dying in a particularly bloody fashion. It can feel like there are two films going on here, a by-the-numbers stalker/slasher movie and a holiday horror film, which leaves me thinking Russo had one of them in mind, but after some eight-year-old smarty-pants came up with that clever “Santa Claws” pun, well, he just had to run with it.

– Jim Knipfel

Santa’s Slay (2005)

Christmas can sure scare the Dickens out of people. Hence why you can’t not watch a holiday horror flick in which Santa is the Antichrist, sentenced to 1,000 years of delivering gifts after losing a curling match with an angel, and played by former pro wrestler Bill “Who’s Next?” Goldberg.

As the only son of Satan (you know what they say about rearranging the letters in that name) whose grim legend is immortalized in the Book of Claus, he can now at last spread Christmas fear with weapons, karate kicks, hand grenades, exploding presents, and his own perverse idea of what “Ho ho ho” should really mean. Them’s the breaks once the bet’s terms are done.

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Santa’s methods of murder are fiendishly festive—to say the least. There is no naughty or nice list when it comes to an insatiable appetite for violence. He even knocks out poseurs in red suits and drives a sleigh with a rocket engine like it’s the Batmobile. Mall Santas everywhere are shaking in their pleather boots.

– Elizabeth Rayne 

Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)

Naughty children get punished with more than just a stocking full of coal in this Christmas chiller. Just the opening scene with all those empty-eyed animatronic toys haunting a window display after-hours should tell you that this is not a movie that’s going to end in visions of sugarplums. Forget that it’s supposed to be the season of all things magical. Those things can be more terrifying than every single plastic skeleton and gaping zombie mask you’ll ever see in a haunted house around Halloween.

You’d better watch out for that psycho in the red suit who grabs a hatchet off the wall as if it was his bag full of toys and packs an automatic pistol in his fur-lined pocket, murdering misbehaving kids he’s been watching undercover of shadow. This sadistic Santa clearly doesn’t believe in sliding down chimneys—and the only red he’s interested in wearing is the blood of innocents. If that won’t convince you to stay awake because he sees you when you’re sleeping, you must be Freddie Krueger.

– Elizabeth Rayne

Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (1987)

Three years after the shit-storm sparked by the original’s ad campaign, some smart cookie decided a sequel was necessary. A tough call there, given most all the principals were killed off pretty thoroughly the first time around, but still, right?

But there was money to be made, so they brought in an untested director (Lee Harry), a mostly untested crew, and a cast of mostly non-professional actors. After a half-dozen writers took a swipe at the script, they came up with a confounding but tepid rehash of the first film. This time around, and mostly in flashback, we learn that after the first killer Santa was sloppily dispatched at the end of Part 1, his brother Ricky becomes determined to uncover what went wrong.

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He pays a visit to the sadistic Mother Superior at the Catholic asylum where his brother had been kept, and before you can say “ho ho ho,” Ricky ends up donning the red and white suit himself to do a little rampaging, though without nearly half of his brother’s imagination. They even used the same fucking poster design, just slapped a “2” on it. I guess hoping they might raise the same sort of ruckus the first one had. Sadly, it was too late for that.

– Jim Knipfel 

Sint (2010)

Dutch director Dick Maas took some early steps toward Krampus territory with his re-imagining of the legend of the warm-hearted Saint Nick. Borrowing heavily from earlier Italian, Spanish, and American horror films, as well as Danish folklore, “Sinterklaas” here was actually a bloodthirsty medieval murderer and all around brute who oversaw a savage reign of terror. Finally fed up with all his nonsense, the ornery local villagers banded together on the night of Dec. 5 and lynched him. As per tradition, however, in the moments before he died Sinterklaas vowed vengeance from beyond the grave, promising to return every 32 years on that very night to do bad and icky things to the villagers’ descendants.

Over the centuries, the story was mainstreamed and soft-pedaled, becoming part of the local folklore. The character of Saint Nick became much more benevolent and child-friendly so as not to scare the wee folk. Then, well, wouldn’t you know it? That anniversary creeps around again, Sinterklaas is true to his word, and Amsterdam turns all bloody, leaving it up to an intrepid teenager named Frank to put a stop to the mayhem.

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A stylish, wicked, and hugely entertaining take on the darker history of a beloved legend. It was also the top grossing film in Denmark in 2010, which either says something about the Danish film industry or the Dutch themselves.

– Jim Knipfel

Tales From the Crypt: And All Through the House (1972)

The Crypt Keeper first emerged as a ghoulish EC Comics horror host in the pages of Tales From the Crypt who crawled onto the big screen in this horror anthology, welcoming unknowing tourists to his catacombs with bony arms open. What the tourists don’t know is that they’re all recently deceased. The invite is to a subterranean story-time in which he unearths the gruesome details of their deaths with a gap-toothed grin. Creatures are obviously stirring when killer wife Joanne is stalked by a homicidal Santa in this warped homage to ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas titled (appropriately enough) “… And All Through the House.”

So it is that “O Come All Ye Faithful” is interrupted while playing on the radio by a scratchy warning of a homicidal maniac run amok. And wouldn’t you just know it, this occurs right as Joan Collins is offing her husband with a shot to the head—and then realizes she has to dismember the body before cashing in on his life insurance. Her blissfully naïve daughter lets the killer jolly old elf in, shrieking that Santa finally came before he erupts into psychopathic rage. Clement C. Moore must be turning in his grave.

– Elizabeth Rayne 

The Wolf of Snow Hollow

Certainly less purely Christmas-y than other entries on this list, The Wolf of Snow Hollow is nonetheless a wintry delight set during the holiday season. Carols play ominously in the background during key moments, and the immaculately snowy white setting of Snow Hollow, Utah is broken only by splashes of color from lights on homes and Christmas trees. Oh yes, and the blood of the titular werewolf’s victims.

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By Mike Cecchini

Jim Cummings’ film is heavy on cozy, ski town holiday atmosphere without leaning on its actual Christmastime setting at all. But good werewolf movies are a rare breed indeed these days, and a werewolf movie set at Christmas? Well…now you know what to watch when the moon is full each December

Mike Cecchini

Got any other suggestions for Christmas horror movies that we missed? Let us know in the comments!

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[liveonmtv]

cash machine || kth

pairing: kim taehyung/f!reader genre: fluff & humor. crack actually. crack cocaine. word count: 11.1k warnings: strong language, drinking, an unwated kiss (not from tae), unsanitary jokes (i’m immature), implied sex, vomiting extra: (fr)enemies to lovers, road trip au, rich kids au but it’s barely there also they’re on summer vacation, also this story takes place in the usa JUST to drag the trip out tbh

summary: Jungkook and Seokjin get a little problematic, you have anger issues and Taehyung is under the impression that he killed a man. Also, did you mention that you’re on your way to your unfunny cousin’s wedding? Go on a road trip from Missouri to Las Vegas and you’ll be in for a hilarious yet scary experience! 

a/n: hi! i’m just starting this account out, so reblogging would mean a lot to me. i’m a novice to writing, so criticism is welcome as long as you’re not rude about it. have fun reading (i hope)! i also have a jungkook fic planned next (:

song

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Jungkook has that look in his face, the one he makes where the person sitting opposite of him is about as depraved as he is. He’s given it to you while you were explaining to him how to scam desperate men under the preface of a faux premium Snapchat and he’s given it to Jimin when they were finishing their high school careers and decided to release grasshoppers in the principal’s office. 

However, if there’s one person that’s about as fucked up in the head as he is, it’s Seokjin. The man also suffers from SMSTS as well (Serious Misconception of Sexual Tension Syndrome, and yes, that’s quite a lot of s’s), which doesn’t hurt given the current affairs. 

While Jungkook is aware that Jimin and Hoseok are always up for a bit of mischief, he has ruled them both out as incompetents and moved on to the real deal. Jimin has these rare moments of sanity and Hoseok, as your most loyal little bitchboy, would probably tattle the situation with made-up details to you before the plan is even set in action. 

So, Seokjin it is. 

The story begins in a faraway land before Jungkook knew about the tragic facets of your family’s relationships. Though his friend group is on good terms with your siblings and your other close relatives are aware of their existence and somehow only have good things to say about them, he never thought they’d be invited to your cousin’s wedding. To be fair, you had to do some serious persuasion for your family to allow you to invite six more people to somebody else’s wedding so there’s that factor contributing, but still, the offer is out of the blue.

Somewhere along the way, you went on a tangent about how much you hate your cousin and how your aunt doesn’t have eyebrows and how bothersome it is to look at her face. Your horror stories were mostly you just being your usual dramatic self, but they also revealed that the [L/n]s aren’t what they appear to be. 

You begged and begged for them to accept the invitations, and though Namjoon and Yoongi, unfortunately, couldn’t make it, the others agreed. 

Then arose the problem of the sixth spot that couldn’t be filled. You would’ve just let it be but your parents insisted that if you’re going to ask for something, you should fulfill it until the end. It was Namjoon you’d asked to come first, but he was busy with visiting family back in Seoul, and Yoongi then declared that he didn’t feel like humoring you this once. And that was the exact moment Jungkook decided to strike.

���You want to play matchmaker?” Jin asks. And though he looks almost skeptical, his tone is definitely an excited one. “With [Y/n] and Tae, of all people?” 

“Well yes, think about it logically,” he explains as he is about to say something completely illogical. “She has that sixth spot to fill, she has no other friends and they’re perfect for each other. All the other shit we’re gonna pull is just for fun, though.”  

Jin laughs an evil laugh, always one to be up for evil schemes. Just another evil day in the evil life of Kim Seokjin. “Well, [Y/n] is Tae’s perfect mean girl. And that girl needs either therapy or to get laid, but like, same.” 

“See? You get me.”

“To be fair, I think that goes for all of us. No offense.” 

“None taken,” Jungkook agrees. “Anyways, I was thinking of a… road trip.” 

“Well you didn’t have to be so dramatic about it, this isn’t The Godfather. Though I do feel like I’ve definitely got a bit of Michael Corleone in me.” 

Jungkook shrugs his shoulders nonchalantly at the other fiend’s remark. “You can pray to god all you want. Here in these streets, the only thing we believe in is El Chapo.” 

“I— Okay…” 

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[11:05] LeBruh James: wtf is wrong with u

[11:05] LeBruh James: get help seriously

[11:06] jk the slump god: all i said was that u should invite taehyung as the 6th person to ur cussin’s wedding 

[11:06] jk the slump god: overreacting arent we 

[11:10] LeBruh James: what the hell is a cussin bitch im gonna kill u

[11:13] jk the slump god: not like u have anyone else to invite tho 

[11:13] jk the slump god: hes not that bad ur just being urself

[11:14] LeBruh James: ur literally Not helping ur case rn

[09:45] LeBruh James: none of the girls want to gooooo

[09:45] LeBruh James: fine if it has to be taehyung ig ill live w it

[10:30] jk the slump god: great he already said yes

[10:30] jk the slump god: btw we’re gonna go in las vegas at the end of a road trip u in?

[10:33] LeBruh James: HE SAID YES BEFORE I EVEN INVITED HIM…

[10:33] LeBruh James: EYE. OK.

[10:33] LeBruh James: on one hand i kind of dont want to see any of u but if ur all gone i wont have anything to do b4 the wedding so i guess im in by proxy

[10:34] jk the slump god: lovely doing business with u y/n-chan

[10:36] LeBruh James: call me y/n-chan again and I Will Put ur Dick-Chan in a Freezer-sama and then Cut-san it off

[10:39] jk the slump god: i dont think ur using the honorifics correctly tbh..

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“I don’t see how this is a good idea,” you state with a dramatic pout while looking out of the window. Your expression is solemn. 

Taehyung kind of can’t believe that you’re throwing a tantrum just because you had to sit next to him in the three-row SUV, but on the other hand, he’s kind of into it. You’re more appalled by the fact that he’s not as disgusting up close as you’d imagined him to be. Well granted, you’re being immature, but it’s your shtick so they take it with a grain of salt.

“Why’s that?” Jungkook asks obtusely. He ruined your life the moment he started calling you [Y/n]-chan and he has that bad case of crazy eyes he gets sometimes when you look at his reflection in the mirror going on right now. You’d be more understanding of his condition, hadn’t your trip started barely five minutes ago. 

“What do you mean why is that? We’re all unstable backstabbing lunatics, do you think we can survive together for six whole days?! Stranded or even in a hotel? And then the ride back to Springfield?”

“Hotel? You’re funny. It’s always been my dream to sleep in a motel,” Jin pipes up. 

“Seriously? No limo, now this.”

“Hotel, motel, holiday inn,” Hoseok starts singing. Perhaps if it was queen Britney, it would’ve curbed your temper but fate doesn’t seem to be that kind. 

“Hotel, motel, holiday inn! Hotel, motel, holiday inn! Hotel, motel, holiday inn!” 

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“So we’re not going to visit the Grand Canyon?” 

“It’s in Nevada,” Jimin explains. “We don’t have any business there except for going to the wedding. I’d be more down to do it if I wasn’t afraid that one of us, meaning [Y/n], would push one of the others, meaning you, in the gutter.” 

“Just a little visit?” Taehyung is talented at only hearing what he wants to hear. However, that doesn’t make the conversation any more productive.

“Well not to be the acrophobic buzzkill, but why are you so adamant about visiting the Grand Canyon?” This is the first time you’ve directly addressed Taehyung since the beginning of these mind-numbing two hours. Jin, hands still on the wheel, dares to take a peek at Jungkook and smile an asshole-type smile before almost accidentally crashing into a pole. 

“Watch the road!” Hoseok cries out. Everyone else either refuses to acknowledge what just occurred or decides to spare themselves from doing so.

“Jin says that he always wanted to sleep in a motel. I have another dream.” 

“To visit the Grand Canyon?”

“Not exactly. I want to take a shit in there and see if I can hear it splatter. Think that’s possible?”

“Maybe if you angle your butthole the right way—” Jimin’s explanation is cut short.

“Oh my god, you are disgusting. Shut up. I don’t want to hear it.”  

“What did I tell you about El Chapo, [N/n]?” 

“What about El Chapo?”

“Holy shit, I think I’m confusing conversations,” Jungkook admits. Jin offers no more than an eye-roll.

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Tulsa is a dump, really. Unfortunate that you had to make a stop here but also you’re satisfied because your right asscheek feels numb right now. Might have to take Kelly for a walk, though.  

Taehyung stumbles out of the vehicle after you and all six of you seize each other fleetingly before making your way towards the gas station, a tense sort of silence following. You’re first to speak up. “Y’know, I’ve been listening to your voices for so long now that I don’t wanna look at your faces.” 

“This tbh,” Hoseok agrees with your most profound sentiments as per the usual. He’s quick to match your pace, trailing after you like a lost puppy, successfully getting Taehyung out of his way. He puts his arm around your shoulders casually and you give him that sardonic smile that’s only really reserved for him.

“Don’t say tee-bee-aytch out loud. I get humiliation by proxy.” 

Jungkook makes an exaggerated gagging sound before nudging Taehyung subtly enough that Jin is the only one who sees the interaction. Though the eldest had agreed with his deranged idea, there’s one thing that Kook knows that Jin hasn’t come to find out. 

Taehyung has an ongoing problem or maybe he’s a masochist. He’s always been one to internally get attached to these girls who’d never give him the time of day, who can’t stand him at all. The tragedy-comedy that is his best friend’s love life started on a rainy day in second grade when a girl by the name of Seulbi punched him in the face and he was hooked on her for three years after. 

After the infamous Seulbi, came Yeonji from the cheerleading club who blew off his invite to his first-ever party when they were fifteen. She’d called him a loser to his face and he was smitten with her for a while, too. 

And then, you appeared in his life seemingly out of nowhere. Hoseok’s catty best friend with a tongue sharper than her stilettos and lipstick that goes perfectly with her skin tone. 

Of course, he was aware of your existence prior to that accident he calls his first conversation with you—be it from the exciting yet flat-out brain dead antics Hoseok would describe you’d gotten caught up in at the time or from the sound of your heels sinking into the floor promptly before you entered math class.  You were always late but claimed that the teacher should be grateful because you cut in line to arrive at school earlier. You always had one of those shitty overrated pumpkin spice lattes in your manicured hands. 

Simply put, Taehyung likes you. Though after your disastrous first meeting during which, blunt-natured and seemingly lacking a sense of self-preservation, he called you a stuck up moron and you threatened to make an attempt at his life. With your bullheaded nature, things never did solve themselves after that one instance.

It’s not something that he’s expressed outwardly, but Jungkook knows him better than he knows the back of his hand. Unfortunately, he knows you too, even if not as well and he knows how you can’t get a boyfriend because you either scare them away or you find out they’re only after a quick fuck and some money. 

Regardless, Jungkook writes off his inner ramblings as irrelevant before turning to Jin in what could be described as a conspirative manner. While clumsily handing the cashier gas money, he whispers something in the other man’s ear and Jin’s eyes literally twinkle like he’s in a low-budget porno. 

He nods, furiously so, and the cashier simply stares at them like they’re two idiots that somehow merged into one. It’s not a pretty sight. 

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“What? We’re sleeping out here?” Your whining is to be expected by now. Had any of your friends written an actual, physical, list of all the things you’ve complained about so far, it’d probably fill a notebook. Thankfully enough, said list remained as a mental compilation of your not-so-epic moments. “What about the motel?” 

“Oh, so now you want a motel?” Jin quips back with a smirk. “They always come ‘round.” 

Despite his boasting and apparent eagerness to go to a motel, that doesn’t change the fact that you all find yourselves in a campsite. You’re not an outdoor person save for going to parties or on a shopping spree with Hoseok. And well, your surroundings are a bit too green right now.

Taehyung is the next person to speak up, with a tense posture and his arms crossed over his chest, almost defiantly so. “Honestly, if you don’t want to be here, I don’t understand why you keep coming to these things.”

“Well, I don’t understand why I had to invite your dumb ass here either. I guess the inner machinations of my mind are an enigma.” 

“Yeah, I thought Namjoon or Yoongi would be more fitting for your taste of guest,” he says, outright taunting you now, as if to remind you of your failed love rendezvous with your now close friends. 

“Well yeah, but they both denied, so I had to invite you.” 

“Ah,” he gives a slight sigh and you dismiss the sadness you register in his voice as something deserved for annoying you, “that does make more sense. Lucky me, I guess.”

“Awkies,” Jungkook announces as if it’s something that needs to be announced. Hoseok simply shrugs, and though you’re definitely not looking forward to sleeping out in the woods, he seems excited to try something new. 

There’s something hilarious about seeing a bunch of upper-class kids trying to set up tents and start a fire. You’ve converted to the cavemen with Hoseok, seemingly unaware that engaging in a one-sided debate with a bundle of sticks won’t make them randomly engulf in flames while Hoseok is trying out a trick he saw in the movies.

Honestly, it’s enough of a miracle that you actually went out in the woods and helped without tripping your silly ass and getting lost among the catacombs. Granted, Hoseok would’ve been compassionate enough to look for you had you gotten lost, but you probably wouldn’t get over the trauma of being covered in mud. 

Taehyung notices you both struggling. Part of him wants to make amends with you and a bigger part of him wants to leave Jimin to scramble on his own. Not that he’s sadistic or anything, he just likes seeing others suffer sometimes for entertainment purposes. 

Anyways. 

He approaches casually, like the kind of casual where you can tell that the person has an ulterior motive that they don’t want to reveal. Hoseok appears happy to see him, like he’s a savior on a white horse, while you don’t acknowledge him that much except for a sharp question regarding what he wants. 

He greets the older boy with one of these grins you won’t admit you enjoy looking at before roaming through the pockets of his jacket. Now that you’ve noticed him wearing one, you come to the sudden realization that it is getting quite breezy. 

Taehyung has the habit of scrunching his nose when he’s looking for something and then unconsciously smile broadly after succeeding in finding it. You don’t like that you’re aware of that and you especially don’t like that you can pinpoint the repetitive action.

It appears that Taehyung was looking for a lighter, of all things. 

“I thought you quit smoking?” You simply give him an incredulous look. 

He doesn’t grace you with an answer. Though he doesn’t reek of the putrid smell, you’re still hoping that the answer to that question is yes. Instead of soothing your curiosity, however, he uses the lighter to ignite a spark in the firewood and you guess that it’ll have to do.

“Well, that was quite pathetic,” you comment unhelpfully. 

“Better than Hobi’s attempts and uh, whatever the fuck you were doing.” 

Hoseok is enthusiastic to announce that the bonfire’s ready. You watch the clumsily prepped three tents in disinterest, not bothering to defend your attempt at enchantment to him. “Hoseokie, you’re gonna share a tent with me right?” 

“Hoseokie,” Jin repeats, but in good fun, “I thought you were gonna crash with me tonight?”

You roll your eyes before redirecting your gaze towards Jimin and Jungkook. By the guilty smile Jungkook gives you, you can tell he doesn’t plan on letting Jimin out of his clown clutches. You narrow your expression and jut your lip out disapprovingly. 

“Well, Mr. Handsome,” Jin interrupts whatever you have to say with a thank you, “since you and Kook have been jointed by the assholes since we got here, I don’t see what the problem is.” 

“I think you’re just saying that because you don’t wanna sleep with Tae,” Hoseok comments obliviously. 

“What he said. Also, these crackwhores are planning something, and I’m going to find out what.”

“Well, you’re in tough luck because Hoseok promised,” Jin argues, emphasizing the word promise. He has a shit-eating grin on his face and he’s not even denying your accusation. 

Taehyung coughs once. The second time is overkill and sounds even faker than the first one. “Sorry, but if [Y/n] isn’t comfortable sharing the tent with me, it doesn’t really matter what Hoseok promised.” 

You gape at him. This is probably the first intelligent thing that you’ve heard come out of his mouth. You almost reconsider your treatment of him after that, but then you remember that a guy being half-decent isn’t something you’re supposed to celebrate. You suppose that even he looks like a saint compared to some of your exes.

Everyone notices the conflict on your face but doesn’t say anything about it. Jin admits that Taehyung’s right with a wail yet the tension doesn’t dissolve, somehow. You excuse yourself by declaring that you’re going to get the blankets out of the SUV. 

“Damn, that bad huh?” Jungkook laughs. It’s the hyena laugh that kind of doesn’t suit his face but also the one he does when he’s having fun for no good reason. 

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“I heard in the girls’ bathroom once that this girl went on a diet where she only eats bananas for three months. Like, five a day,” you explain while you munch on your banana in front of the bonfire. Needless to say, you’ve come out to be severely underprepared in terms of food on your first day. 

“That sounds like a strategy to make yourself unhinged,” Hoseok retorts. He believes your story but he’s skeptical about that banana business. “I’d never do that.” 

“Me neither. Diets are stupid, anyway, can’t a bitch eat?” 

Jungkook reaches over and high-fives you, looking at you like you’ve just invented air or some shit. “Amen to that sister.” 

“By the way, what’s the plan for tomorrow?” Jimin is the one to speak up this time. 

“I have quite the plan for you, alright,” Jin laughs. His next statement, however, is the embodiment of his immature nature. “But that banana talk had me all distracted.”

Everyone collectively groans. You’re not really sure if what he said would classify as a dad joke at this point; you’re now entering single-and-desperate-dad joke territory. Can’t say that you’d enjoy it coming from someone else, but Jin is Jin.

“Anyways,” he dismisses his previous remark with an easy-going smile and a wave of his hand in thin air, “we’re going to a breakfast place first thing in the morning. By foot.” 

His grin is mischievous. You think this is the worst idea he’s had yet and no one else present seems attracted by the prospect of it either, so you vocally oppose him with a raised brow. “Don’t you realize how likely it is we’ll get lost?” 

“Yeah, I also don’t wanna walk too much.” Hoseok’s always one to back you up.

“Technology doesn’t lie, [Y/n].”

“If technology doesn’t lie how come I had a D on my maths test in junior year when I used Photomath?” 

Hoseok agrees, remembering the incident. That day was truly one of sorrow. 

“Technology only lies if you’re gullible enough,” Jin now changes the narrative. 

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You sneak out of your and Hoseok’s tent with a brief explanation thrown over your shoulder. Something about getting your make-up wipes from the trunk. Hoseok mutters inspiring words of advice—be careful, it’s dark and who knows what animal puke is on the ground—and you stumble your way to the SUV. 

Shoving the keys in the hole proves to be a difficult task, however. You aimlessly jut it in, hoping to hit the correct place by some sort of miracle. This is the moment that you realize that your eyes aren’t so good at adapting to the darkness. 

“Hey, what’re you doing?”

You jump up out of pure reflex. Startled, you whip around with a bemused look on your face. You’re gonna get wrinkles, damn it. 

“Woah, girl jumps in heels,” Taehyung comments dryly. 

“Don’t sneak up on me, you idiot cokehead,” you retort. You’re not sure why you said that. He’s not a cokehead. 

“No, but seriously, what’re you doing?” 

“I’m trying to look for my make-up wipes.” 

Taehyung takes the keys from you. Without half as much fumbling as you’d done previously, he opens the trunk and you proceed with looking through your purse, only to come to the conclusion that you’ve forgotten your make-up lines somewhere. There’s now a new resolve, clear as day in your twisted mind—you have to find the supermarket you passed by on your way here and buy new ones.

“Did you find them?”

“No.” You scoff. An angry thaw and the trunk is now closed. “I’m going to buy some.” 

“Woah, calm down tiger. Can’t you just sleep with it?” 

“No! Do you know how bad that is for your skin?” 

“Well, we could find a river and you could wipe your face with the dirty water.” 

You give him a blank stare, barely suppressing a small giggle. “Do you understand how ridiculous you’re being?” 

“I’m being ridiculous?”

Silence.

“...You’re not planning to go off in the woods during the dawn of asscrack, right?” 

“The what? Yeah.”

Taehyung looks towards your tent only to see that the light is completely shut down. Hoseok must be asleep already. “I’ll go with you.” 

You roll your eyes. “Do whatever you want.” 

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“So, why do you hate your cousin so much?” Taehyung asks abruptly from behind you. 

Most of your walk has been a silent one, so far, except for an occasional grumble from you and an absentminded one-liner from him. There’s also the sound of sticks crumbling under your high-heels that’s slightly irritating. 

“Because she’s unfunny,” you reply seriously.

“You have issues.” This is probably the least significant reason someone has ever hated somebody else for, in the entire history of hatred. Strangely enough, however, Taehyung can’t help finding it endearing how outlandish you can be.

“I’m sorry, I must have Alzheimer’s because I don’t remember asking,” you snap with a roll of your eyes. 

“You know, I have a dog,” he begins dramatically. “And sometimes he shits on the carpet and one time he puked on me, but I still love him very much. He’s gang, you feel?” 

“I don’t see how that helps with my family situation.”

“I never said it’s supposed to help, I just wanted to talk about myself.” He snickers. You’re getting the most violent of urges. 

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Leering over the thin metal fence that looms over an otherwise mundane hill gives you an idea. Down the admittedly high hill, the supermarket is obnoxiously lit up. However, the hideous sight doesn’t deter you—this is what your nirvana looks like in the given moment.

With one bold move, you lift your leg up the fence and Taehyung considers you, your motives and perhaps even your life until now. “What are you doing?” 

“It’ll be faster if I go down the hill.” 

“You’re gonna break your ankles in these shoes,” he rebuts, his voice a tilted monotone. “Also, I can see your underwear like this.” 

“Perveeeeert.” This is your final taunt before you do make it over the short fence and onto the other side. Examining the hill from up close—but not before you roll your miniskirt down—you come to two conclusions. The first one is that it’s quite steep and the second one comes when you’re one step down, that maybe, just maybe, you’re a bit deranged.

With your back turned to him, you don’t get to see Taehyung experiencing the five stages of grief. There’s obvious conflict on his face and to be precise, his current dilemma is between worry for you and a lack of power to stop you. Perhaps had you turned around, you’d find the sight entertaining.

His movements are leisurely once he does get in motion. Taehyung’s plan is to simply help you up now that he noticed that you’re hesitating to go further than you’ve already gone. 

His voice cutting through the night’s silence startles you. “Hey, you really shouldn’t do this.” 

You stumble. 

As tragic as that is, there’s something else to placate you; you’ve never seen Taehyung move so fast. Not even during the blip test in high school. The rest of his actions are less endearing—he throws you over his shoulder carelessly, stumbles onto the sidewalk and drops you like it’s hot. And then your legs are a bit wobbly, but you pretend they aren’t. 

The unnerving silence remains all the way to the supermarket, then back to the campsite and even when Taehyung’s awkwardly using his phone as a flashlight in your face while you remove your make-up. There’s nothing to say, except maybe if he were to ask you a question that’s not to your liking.

(He’s not that bad.)

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Jin is in a hurry, but you’re not sure what for. It’s been practically less than a day since you started this road trip, but it feels longer. You’re conflicted about how to feel regarding that, but even so, Jimin and Hoseok’s enthusiasm is hard to ignore. 

The feline smile on your face drops the moment Jungkook basically drags you out of your tent, bare-faced and severely underdressed. Well, to be honest, you blend in with them just fine, but in your head, you’re severely underdressed. Something more boujee is usually your style, but you realize your predicament won’t magically change the longer you’re walking in what feels like the middle of nowhere. 

Tusla is gross, yes, but maybe Oklahoma is just gross in general. 

When you’re unhappy, you don’t get shy about it—honesty is the best policy, after all. So you’re going on one of those annoying tangents you like to go on like it’s second nature to you. Maybe it is. 

Taehyung drones out whatever it is you’re saying the moment you start talking about a pimple in your nostril that has hair growing out of it. He’s not particularly grossed out by this revelation, rather, he doesn’t like listening to you go on and on about everything you don’t like about yourself. 

“And I couldn’t put on that necklace you got me for my birthday,” you complain before linking your arms with Hoseok’s and feigning a sniff.

“That is pretty horrible,” he hums in agreement. “I think I have a rash on my thigh.” 

“See, if Jungkook wasn’t being horrible I could probably get some kinda product to smear on it.”

Taehyung feigns a loud yawn. Tagging along with you and Hoseok isn’t as tiring as he’d like to make it out to be. 

“What’re you yawning so blatantly for? I hate being interrupted.” You roll your eyes cockily. 

“Sorry, I almost fell asleep during this uninteresting speech of yours.”

You fume again and Hoseok reassures you with something along the lines of don’t worry, [Y/n], it’s very interesting. Then, silence follows. It always seems to end up like this between the two of you. 

“Well, if it helps,” Taehyung starts, tone breezy, “you’re still beautiful.” 

You feel your face heat up. Sure, boys have given you plenty of compliments before—you’re no stranger to it—hot, sexy and maybe pretty on a good day. But beautiful? Especially without any make-up on? This is definitely something new. 

Hoseok smiles. “Yeah, he’s right.” 

You don’t want to admit just how flattered you really are. “Of course I am.”

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You take the first thing you find to your liking once you reach the breakfast place. Actually, it’s more brunch than it is breakfast, but all that walking is making you starve so you don’t feel particularly inclined to be hung up on semantics. 

“It’s on me.” Jungkook sweeps in smoothly, giving you a flashy smile. 

“Fuck off. I’m still mad at you.”

“You might be, but not for long,” he argues with an obnoxious grin on his face. “They call it… The Kook Effect.” 

You shake your head. “I’m pretty sure you just made that up.”

“Yeah? Remember when you won a bet against Jimin and he had to call you Supreme Majesty in freshman year? And then you pretended that he did it out of his own volition.” 

“Oh, I’m not taking this from you and your dead trim.”

“My trim is fine, thanks.”

“Dead trim!” you repeat, almost frantic. You’re so caught up with Jungkook’s dead trim that you don’t notice that Taehyung is giving you a cheesy smile as he buys you your food. He looks like the greasiest gentleman alive when he hands it to you. 

“And what’s that about?”

“In junior year, at summer camp, they took away our phones because someone recorded the instructor jerking off. And then like, blackmailed him.” 

You quirk an eyebrow up at this, unsure what he’s hinting at. “Right.”

“Right. And then they took all of our phones for a month and you started crying about how your life is a living nightmare.” 

“Right…” you trail off, suddenly embarrassed as if that hadn’t happened a whole two years ago. But like, it totally was a big deal! “The no phone rule was the worst. Even worse than the public bathroom rule.”

“I did it. I’m making it up to you,” he explains. 

You feel your mouth twitch into a small smile, one that he hasn’t quite seen on you before. “I forgive you this once, then.” 

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“We’re going to a hotel after sightseeing,” Jin explains. It’s like he’s got everything figured out all by himself and perhaps with the help of Jungkook’s annoying personality. “I arranged the rooms and everything while you were eating.” 

“Quite epic,” Jimin comments absentmindedly. “Wait, rooms? Like, you mean who’s rooming with who?” 

“Yeah, I finished the registration.” He stares directly at you and then Taehyung. “You could switch if you wanted to, it doesn’t really matter.”

You give him a light glare, already having a brief idea of what he’s done, but don’t comment any further. With a sense of deja vu, you speak up again. “What about the motel?” 

“I wasn’t sure if we’re going to be passing by one today, so I thought hey! Better safe than sorry.” 

Everyone nods in half-agreement until Jin speaks up again. “Plus, you guys reek. You should shower. Couldn’t be me.”

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Predictably, Jin did set you and Taehyung up. You can’t tell what kind of game he and Jungkook are playing, however, the poor boy isn’t half as insufferable in your eyes ever since this road trip began, so maybe you should thank them. Still, you don’t trust them—their minds are as twisted as yours.

As the two of you are dragging your luggage towards your shared room, Taehyung reminds you that you’re free to tell him if you don’t want to sleep with him. “I could go to Jungkook’s room or something.”

You find the idea of being alone more unfavorable than you thought you would. Perhaps your high-school, drastically more histrionic, self would’ve found anything more pleasant than sharing a room with Taehyung. You’re a (slightly) changed person now, though. Or at least you’d like to believe you are.

“Let’s put it like this. I hate a lot of things.”

“You don’t need to tell me that, I already know,” he interrupts with a crude giggle. 

“But you’re not one of them,” you admit. 

There’s also the fact that the two of you are blatantly ignoring that you could switch with Jin and sleep with Hoseok instead.

No more words are spoken between the two of you that day. New Mexico isn’t half as bad as Oklahoma was. 

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You wake up before Taehyung does, punctually so. Rolling out of bed, you partly don’t care whether you wake him but at the same time, you try to avoid making too much noise before slipping into the bathroom. Though you’re definitely one to value your beauty sleep, yesterday’s incident left you paranoid over whether Jungkook or Jin would catch you unprepared. 

You go through your routine calmly and by the time Taehyung goes in the bathroom to take a piss, you’re ready to start doing your make-up. You stare at the foundation in your hand but before you can apply it, you hesitate. 

Do I need make-up to be desirable?

Of course, you’re aware that not all women who use make-up are insecure, or that it’s always necessarily toxic for your self-esteem. And you thought that was the case with you as well, but your doubts suggest otherwise. Swiftly, you put all of your stuff away, stick with your trusty lipstick and nothing else. 

“Morning,” he says, groggy still. 

“Morning.” You look over to him from the corner of your eye and he looks kind of dazed. “Jin says we’re staying here until tomorrow morning.” 

“Cool. Hotel’s nice. The scenery too.” 

“I guess.” 

There’s something cripplingly awkward when the two of you aren’t hurling insults at each other, you realize. 

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You’re off somewhere with Hoseok and Jin when Taehyung is hanging out with Jimin and Jungkook. Turns out their room has a nice balcony, and with the others out of the picture, there’s some kind of buzzed chatter about incoherent topics swirling around. 

Jungkook suddenly decides that it’s a good idea to start talking about his sexcapades. Maybe it’s the alcohol or maybe his mind’s slipping. Jimin kind of wants to admit how much he doesn’t care what his friend does outside of watching anime and playing video games, but there’s also a part of him that’s morbidly intrigued by Jungkook’s words. Like a dark spell or something. 

“I wanted to hit it off with [Y/n] in high school,” he admits bluntly.

The other two stare at him.

“Oh really? What made you change your mind?” Jimin asks, now more awake than ever. 

“Dunno. Like, she’s more like, the bitchy rival in rom-coms, not the protagonist. I liked her, but I didn’t think I could handle her,” he admits.

“Once we were clubbing and this guy was messing with me and I complained to her about it,” Jimin begins, leaning into his chair with a fond smile on his face, “and she was all like, I’ll show him. And I was like, what? And she was like, I’ll show him who he’s dealing with. And then I was like, okay, maybe don’t show him that much.” 

The three of them chuckle. Taehyung talks for the first time in a while. “Nah, I agree.”

“You dig it though, right?” 

Jimin gives him a knowing look right after Jungkook shoots his question with a drunken smile. He guesses that since Hoseok isn’t here, he can finally admit it. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I do. But I can’t get things right with her.” 

“What do you mean?”

“It’s like, we’re either fighting or it’s really awkward.” 

“You’re on your own.” Jimin dismisses him with a wave of his hand. “I don’t think she hates you that much. It’s always Taehyung this, Taehyung that.” 

“True,” Jungkook agrees. “Like yes, maybe she’s complaining about you half the time and I know she loves gossiping but I’ve never heard her talk about someone else that much. Except maybe Yoongi. What I’m sayin’ is, you should give it a shot.”

“Why do you guys even fight so much?” Jimin laughs. “Whenever it happens, I like, forget what even happened to lead up to that.” 

“Well, you know me. I’m always too honest for my own good and when I hit her with some snark she starts getting all defensive. I just...” He sounds defeated by the time he’s finished with his explanation. Taehyung’s shoulders visibly slump and his frame slides down the uncomfortable chair. “I just want to get along with her.” 

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The fourth day is the first time you actually aren’t sure where you are. Save for supposedly being close to Nevada by now, you tuned out the rest of Jin’s explanation despite your previous attempts at keeping up with your location. 

Regardless, what’s important is living in the present. And the present for you right now is walking down a nameless street, in a mess of other tourists, with your pants uncomfortably sticking to your ass with sweat. In short, you feel gross. 

Taehyung doesn’t seem to be having the same problem, while you can’t even fake being unfazed. You envy him just the tiniest bit. 

A trashy souvenir shop seems to catch Taehyung’s attention. In the scorching heat and sand-yellow scenery of this town, however, even that seems more appealing. So when he urges you to go with him, you find yourself reluctantly agreeing. 

When you step in, the air conditioning of the otherwise homey shop welcomes you like taking a breather during an overcrowded party. You let an unconscious smile take over your face when you greet the cashier. She’s cute and her adorableness factor only spikes up when she practically beams at the sight of customers. 

“Hi! Please, feel free to look around.” 

“We will,” Taehyung answers offhandedly. Her gaze lingers on him. 

Most of the things don’t interest you. Actually, they’re hideous if you had to be completely honest. He doesn’t seem that enamored by them either, but you can tell he finds more redeeming qualities about them than you do. 

Your eyes almost bulge out of your face when you see the most live-laugh-love-esque decoration to exist. Like something your mom would laugh-react to on Facebook. 

The offender is no more than three inches tall and wide, a ceramic plate with a cartoony burger portrayed on it. It’s holding a flag that says two simple words: “Nice Buns!” 

You can’t tell if it’s the radioactivity of Jungkook’s cooking from earlier or if this thing is what’s making you nauseous. However, food-poisoning or not, you’re quite disgusted by what you’ve just seen. “Oh my god, the caucasity.” 

“Aw, you don’t like it?” Taehyung says with a mocking pout. “I think it’s cute.” 

“What’s wrong with you? It’s corny.”

“No, it isn’t. It might’ve been if it was a corn-dog, though.” 

You heaved an over-dramatic sigh. “You’re saying words that have no positive impact on my life.”

“I think I’ll buy it,” he declares, before checking the price and realizing he hasn’t brought enough money with himself. 

You shake your head. “I’m not gonna be an accomplice to… that.” 

“Well, of course not. This is your Valentine’s present.”

“Go to hell. As if I’d be your Valentine in the first place,” you reply sardonically before pushing him out of the way.  

Taehyung realizes something at that moment. Even outside your evident disinterest in him and his affairs, the two of you are completely incompatible. You, too quick to judge and be offended and him, too quickly to say the first thing on his mind, obviously don’t mesh smoothly. 

Neither of the boyfriends you’ve had that he’s spoken to is anything like him, either. If Namjoon and Yoongi have one thing in common, it’s that they’re both calm, collected and have a good head screwed securely on top of their shoulders. He’s not like that.

Even so, that revelation only makes the concept of being with you more alluring. 

Kim Taehyung is an idiot. But more importantly, with one glance towards the admittedly good-looking cashier making googly eyes at him, Kim Taehyung makes a decision.

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While you’re taking a shit in a nearby cafeteria, you receive a text from Taehyung. This is shocking by itself since despite the two of you having each others’ numbers, you never really text. 

[15:30] pain in the neck: im going on a date w/ the cashier

[15:30] pain in the neck: feel free to leave

[15:45] Princess Complex: i’m just gonna hang with jungkook thank god

Why is your stomach sinking?

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Once you meet up with Jungkook, you explain the situation briefly. He quickly looks you over, confusion evident on his face. “What? On a date?”

“Yeah, he just kinda left me in the toilet,” you confirm with a shrug. “Anyways, where do you wanna go?” 

It’s not like Jungkook is an oblivious idiot with the emotional capacity of your aunt’s mutated sixth toe, even if he may appear to be. But you never thought he’d call you out the moment your overly confident facade starts slipping. His gaze softens. “Are you sure you’re okay with that?” 

He isn’t examining you when he asks. No, he appears to be looking off, somewhere behind you. However, you remain ignorant to that fact. 

“Yes! Why would I care? I’d rather drink toilet water for ten years straight than spend any more time with that moron,” you snap, too worked up for someone who supposedly doesn’t care. 

“Is that how you really feel about Taehyung?”

“Yes! Yes, oh my god, let it go.”

Jungkook makes one more helpless expression, shrugs lightly, and you fail to realize that neither of those gestures is directed at you. “Let’s go to the arcade.”

“I’m not really into video games,” you lie as you run your hand through your hair, “but fine.”

“Hell yeah.”

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When Taehyung goes back to your room in the trashy motel, notably late during the night for a mere first date, the atmosphere is tense. There’s a crease in your brows when you unlock the door and obvious bite marks over your bare lips. He stumbles ahead to enter, but you continue blocking his path with your arms frigidly crossed over your chest.

“You’re late.” 

“And what’s it to you?” He’s never spoken to you so harshly. There are moments where his words bite, but never does he say them with an expression and tone that are so frosty.

“Nothing in particular.” You move out of his way, finally, and he enters. You briefly wonder if he’s had alcohol before you start talking again. “I’ve been stuck in this room for like, an hour because the keys are in me. Waiting for you...”

“Poor you.”

“Excuse me?”

“I heard what you said about me to Jungkook. You know, I’m starting to understand why you scared away all your exes.”

Warth washes over you in waves for a millisecond before it disperses into nothingness, a cold numbness that makes your back shiver. Your gaze on him is empty yet livid at the same time and he cowers under it. You’re not sure if the guilt on his face is a flicker of your imagination or if it’s genuine, but you hope it’s the latter. 

It’s never his words that are a big deal to you. It’s the way he speaks every syllable, so earnestly with truth laced in every letter, that makes you go off the hook. Because deep down, you’re aware that he doesn’t mean to be malicious or to offend, it’s merely him telling his truth.

You grab a few things impulsively with a mundane declaration, before storming off god knows where. “I’m not sleeping here tonight.”

When the door clicks behind your frame, Taehyung backs down and sprawls out across the bed. Truthfully, he regretted his words before he even opened his mouth. But he was so angry, be it with you or with himself.

It just seemed so unfair that you could blow him away time after time and yet, on his date the only thing on his mind was you. The mediocre make-out session and him awkwardly leaving out of nowhere didn’t help, either. And then you had to be so perfect, waiting for him instead of locking his ass out like he thought you would.

It isn’t the girl’s fault she’s raised to be as sweet as sugar while you’re more like citrus. He’s always had a knack for lemons, anyway.

The fact that you spent the rest of the day with Jungkook only aggravates him further, the younger’s words repeating in his head. I tried to hit it off with [Y/n] in high school, or whatever it was that he said exactly. All of this is his own fault, anyway—if he hadn’t been so temperamental, you would’ve stayed with him for the rest of the day.

Taehyung stares at the cheap lights hanging on the ceiling until his eyes hurt that night.

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Half-way through your trek to Hoseok’s room, you crumble. A sob escapes your throat and then another one. After these two instances, your tears don’t cease. 

At first, Jimin is excited to see you at their door but his smile slips the moment he realizes what a bad state you’re in. You’re practically making whale noises while desperately searching for Hoseok. 

“I’ll give you two a moment.” He gives you one final look-over and leaves with a not-so-threatening threat. “Or maybe thirty. You better be smiling and singing Toxic by the time I’m back, [Y/n].”

Hoseok rushes to hug you. “God, girl, what’s wrong?”

“I like Taehyung.” 

“Is that it? You’re a strong girl, y’know, I never pictured you crying over some pretty boy.” 

“No. I’m crying because I’ve liked him all this fucking time and I tried to run away from him because I’m scared. And he said the most horrible thing to me,” you explain as you bury yourself deeper into his embrace. “That’s why I’m crying.”

“I hope he isn’t allergic to hands, because he’s about to catch them. Actually, I hope he is allergic.” Hoseok isn’t one to ask about details. He lets you get it out of your system, makes a few promises (most often of violence) and then allows you to elaborate if you wish to do so.

You laugh, but it turns into choking considering how much snot you have running down your face by now. “He said that he understands why my exes run away from me. I mean, I— I said something rude about him first, but Jungkook was backing me into a corner and I didn’t know he would even find out about it, I just—”

“Forget about him, forget about Jungkook, everyone. Tonight is for Britney,” Hoseok commands more than he asks you.

You smile sadly at him before uselessly wiping your tears away and giggling like you’re on the brink of losing your mind. Perhaps you are.

“My 45-carat booger. Hey, let’s make Jimin do the chicken dance,” Hoseok starts off like he’s coddling you in his strange way of doing so, but then quickly turns diabolical. He throws some tissues at you and you accept them. If there’s one thing you’re truly grateful for, it’d be your best friend.

You nod, suddenly more excited than you should be. Hoseok’s right—you don’t need some pretty boy when queen Britney is watching over you.

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The next day, you’re wearing a full-face of make-up, and Taehyung notices it. Hoseok’s driving and you’re in the passenger seat, talking about some nonsense as usually do. The atmosphere is light, with Jimin and Jungkook occasionally joining in your conversation and Jin sleeping with his forehead pressed against the window.

Truth to be told, Taehyung feels like a zombie right now. Pretending that your scuffle with him meant nothing to you only convinces him further how little you care about anything that has to do with him.

“I think we’ll be in Las Vegas soon,” Hoseok announces cheerily.

On one hand, you’re happy to finally be seeing the end of this road trip. Though you’ve technically just been relaxing, you wanted to be done with your cousin’s dumb wedding and go back to spending an average amount of time with your friends. You want to forget how flippant things are between you and Taehyung, your quote-unquote friendship dictated by mood swings rather than actual feelings.

“Fuck yeah! I wanna get drunk in Vegas,” you say with a smirk. “It’s on my bucket list.”

“Really?” 

“Yeah.”

“You want to get drunk everywhere,” Jungkook corrects with a laugh. You can’t help agreeing with him. “And Jin will probably stay in the hotel and play Candy Crush or something.”

“Ew, ew, ew, a fucking millenial,” you exclaim in mock disgust.

“Jin can be a beast if he wants to. Remember when he twerked in front of the whole school on Taehyung’s birthday party?”

“Shit was wild, man.”

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No one except you, Hoseok and Taehyung himself is aware of what transpired yesterday. So Jungkook and Jin are still stubbornly placing the two of you together, yet you’re too powerless to fight it.

The hotel is a fancy one, courtesy of your annoying cousin. She’s been texting you and you sent a short message back to inform her you’ve arrived, but you haven't bothered to deal with her provocations any further. 

After dumping his luggage near his bed, Taehyung was straight out of the room and you started getting ready. And that was that. 

You feel more like yourself when you find the wine hidden in the fridge, a free present from the hotel. Or maybe your cousin’s way of making peace. Ha, as if that’d happen. 

When Taehyung comes back to get dressed, you’re already tipsy and acting like a fool.

“Drinking already?” There are many things that Taehyung wants to say to you. An apology he’s too sober to say and a confession you’re too drunk to hear, to begin with. 

“It’s pre-game,” you explain dizzily. “You know. I never told you why I hate my cousin so much. She used to bully me and she stole my first boyfriend from me. And we never got past it.”

With your trademark look, high-heels, acrylics, a fancy yet revealing dress along with whatever else you consider fashionable at the moment, Taehyung feels familiarity staring at your lopsided smirk. Though he’s gotten glimpses of other sides of you during these past few days, like how you like cuddling during the night, this is the epitome of who you are.

“Yeah,” he replies agreeably, though you’re not sure what for.

“Well, I don’t know about you, but Hoseok is waiting for me. So, this is bye-bye.” 

“See you there.”

“Probably not.” You snicker. Taehyung can tell that you’re still upset with him.

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You’re so wasted that the things happening around you aren’t really making sense anymore. While you and Hoseok were drinking together for a while, at one point Jungkook whisked him away, then there’s a blank in your memory and now you’re here. Alone. And you’ve lost count of how many drinks you’ve had. 

A man, that’s definitely a few years older than you, finally approaches you after observing you from afar. He says some sort of sleazy line—you’re not sure what it is, you’re not really listening—and offers you a drink. 

You consider him. He’s not your type at all and that pornstache isn’t helping his case but, when you look at Taehyung and see him talking and having fun while you’re being an alcoholic by your lonesome and moping about him, you quickly accept his offer. Pornstache or not. 

“Pick anything you’d like, kitten,” he purrs, in an attempt at being seductive. 

“Well first off I’m not a furry so don’t call me that,” you snap with a self-assured grin. And then you start listing off the most expensive drinks on the menu. 

This man is so enamored by you that he buys you all of them. You’re three steps closer to alcohol poisoning when you clumsily stumble onto the dance floor along with him, running your hand over his jaw in what you believe to be a sensual manner. He seems to dig it, but from an outsider’s perspective the two of you look like junkies trying to get off. 

Your experience in the club is romanticized. The dim lights are reminiscent to those few times you’ve gone to a rave and it reeks of alcohol, overpriced perfumes and sweat. You and your nameless pathetic fan mingle with the grinding crowd and begin imitating them. 

As the poet Lady Gaga once said, “redlight pornographic dance fight”. 

The act itself is indifferent to you. From across the room, Taehyung locks eyes with you and you’re not really sure why but you feel this sudden need to provoke him, even when you know he most likely wouldn’t care. You sloppily kiss your suitor’s cheek while looking at him intensely from across the room. A red trail from your wet lips makes its way down his face.

For the sake of pettiness, you might’ve gone further—I mean, you were already playing some weird game of tug-and-war but with clothes—but you don’t want to know the feeling of this guy’s lips against yours. He finds the mostly innocent action as an invitation, though, and abruptly halts your staring contest with Taehyung by forcing you into a greedy kiss.

Pushing him away, you give him a pointed stare and rejection is clear on his face. “Excuse me…” 

He’s a terrible kisser. 

Pushing through everyone that’s in your way, you make your escape through the first door you find. In your intoxicated parade, you fail to make sense of the words ‘CLOSED’ that are so blatantly taped over the entrance. So, you find yourself in front of a swimming pool. 

The cold breeze outside prickles at your skin unpleasantly, and a quick look around tells you that there’s no one around to put this in their cringe compilation. Apparently more disgusted than you’d initially thought, you puke your guts out in front of the pool. Now light-headed and somehow empty, you stare at your vomit and take a deep breath. 

“Hey, why’d you run away?” Your suitor from earlier appears to have followed you outside. You stare at your feet—doesn’t he understand that you wanted to get away from him?

“You’re a bad kisser,” you say bluntly after getting over your little trance. 

“Give me a chance to change your mind then,” he offers smugly, taking menacing steps towards you. You move away instinctively before you’re quickly backed into a wall, with his two hands trapping you in between. 

Your eyes widen with fear and you sink into yourself. If you had anything else to puke out, you’re sure you would’ve done so at this point. “I have sharp nails and I’m not afraid to use them.”

“Oh, she bites-”

The events that play out next happen so slowly, you’re not sure why you’re surprised. Taehyung appears, and you do see him in your peripheral vision, stares for a bit before knocking the guy out with a punch to his temple. He falls unconscious on the ground.

“Oh god, did I kill him?” he asks, a vacant look on his face. He imagined his first kill to be more thrilling, but on second thought, he’s not sure why he was thinking about that without being under the influence of substances in the first place. 

“I’d be happy if he’s dead, if that helps,” you comment dryly. 

“Do we dump the body in the pool or what?”

The two of you are drunk enough to consider it. Your mind is blank for a bit, before you finally speak up. “I’m trying to think of what I saw on How To Get Away With Murder, but it’s not coming to me. But like, on Blacklisted, there was this guy who like, made the corpses turn to gas or something!”

“You watch too much TV. Also, I’m pretty sure it’s called The Blacklist.”

“Whatever. Do you know how to do that?”

“No.”

“Hey, what’s going on here?” A new voice cuts in.

“You better come up with something convincing or we’ll have to kill him too,” you urge.

“Did you say something?”

“No.”

“Umm, awkward believe it yeah,” Taehyung begins, a strong start. “This guy slipped on her puke and hit his head. And he has a concussion now.”

“Man, that sucks,” the guy says. You’re relieved that he’s as trashed as he is, otherwise the situation would’ve went really badly, considering how Taehyung straight-up lied to his face. “I’ll go call someone over ‘ere.”

Once he’s out of sight, the two of you stare at each other and decide to flee the country. But then change the plan with the more economically-efficient idea to simply leave the club. 

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“Why were you with that guy anyway?” Taehyung asks. Frankly put, neither of you know where you’re going, but you’re boldly leading him through the artificially-lit streets of Las Vegas as if you’re born there. Where you end up is a concern your sober selves of tomorrow should worry about.

“I wanted to make you jealous,” you reply, bold, like everything you do when you’re drunk is. 

“...I don’t get it.”

“You pissed me off so much yesterday. And you made me jealous when you went out with that cashier. But also, you killed a guy for me, so I guess I’m not mad at you anymore.” 

“Well aren’t you high-maintenance,” he retorts sarcastically, gaining what feels like a confidence spurt because of your sudden confession. “You don’t have anything to be jealous of, anyway. The only thing I had on my mind during that stupid fucking date was you.”

You freeze up. You thought that your own attitude was what made any possibility of him returning your feelings seem laughable. Even if it’s drunk blabber, alcohol is an honesty elixir, at least in your case. “Kiss me?” 

He doesn’t need to be told twice, attacking your lips so eagerly you’d consider it funny if you were in a right state of mind. Still, your reciprocation is just as hungry, so maybe you don’t have any room to laugh. He is indulging you, after all.

The wipeout that happened at the club happens again and you’re left to wonder how things escalated. From teeth clashing against each other in pure excitement, you’re left hovering over Taehyung’s form and straddling him unsteadily.

He reaches under your already high dress and the glimpse of your panties seems to excite him. “You have no idea how much I’ve thought about this,” he admits breezily. 

You smile, a teasing one, adjusting yourself better. “You don’t need to be so dramatic about it, it’s just underwear.” 

“Dramatic is how many times I’ve jerked off after we went to the supermarket and you flashed me.”

“Ewwww, we shared a bed like three times, freak,” you scold and he pouts when you distance yourself from him. 

“I was just trying to be funny!”

“Not funny. Didn’t laugh. It’s better when you don’t talk,” you instruct before leaning down again to kiss him. At least he’s having fun with groping whatever he can get his hands on. 

“You’re so annoying it turns me on. Always whining, it drives me nuts how much I really like you.”

You snicker. “Well, I sure am feelin’ the love here.”

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When you wake up, you register three things. Four, actually. First—your left shoe is missing. Second— Taehyung is knocked out cold next to you. Third—you don’t know where you are, except for the fact that there’s a garbage bin next to you. Fourth—your head is throbbing with pain and you’re so sore you’re not sure if you can walk. Needless to say, you had the wild night in Vegas you wished for in your bucket list, and you only half-regret it.

You see your shoe discarded near you and nudge it with your toe for a bit before finally gathering enough power to sit up and put it on. Or so you think, because the moment you’re propped in a standing position, you vomit like you did yesterday. 

Speaking of yesterday, the only thing you remember is that you and Taehyung were convinced that he’s now a murderer on the run, confessing your feelings for each other in an anti-climactic manner and then having like seven rounds of public sex. 

With a recap of yesterday’s events, you digress and put your shoe on before reaching in your purse. Surprisingly, you haven’t been robbed. Fishing your phone out, you come to the conclusion that you’ve been knocked out cold for way too long. 

Hoseok has generously spammed you with seventy texts, but you don’t bother to read them, already assuming that the gist is something about where the fuck you and Taehyung are. Instead, you call him immediately. 

“Hi,” you greet casually.

“[Y/n]! Where the fuck are you and Tae? We were so worried. Jin almost declared you two missing. But on the positive side, Jungkook didn’t care because he got food poisoning yesterday at the club.”

“I don’t know where we are, but he’s with me.”

“What do you mean?!”

“I’ll send you my location. I don’t have money for Uber, love you, kisses and hickeys,” you say in one breathe before hanging up quickly and doing what you said you’d do. 

At first, you thought this road trip was an opportunity for you to grow and mature. However, after yesterday’s shenanigans, you’re almost convinced your sociopathic tendencies are now higher by 5%. 

You start shaking Taehyung until he wakes up and swats your arms away. Now upon closer inspection, while you’re aware that you look bad right now, he’s not looking too hot either. The lipstick marks you had left on his face make it look like you’ve either slobbered all over him or that he’s a vampire, you’re not sure. And you’ve bitten him so much somebody could think he got attacked by a racoon judging solely on those bruises.

You quickly explain the situation to him as you’re fixing up your bra and top. Considering the fact that you were bordering on nip-slip territory, that was your priority. Smoothing your dress is easy enough, but your pantyhose is mysteriously ripped in some incriminating places.

He reaches out, rips out the fake eyelash that was pathetically hanging off the corner of your eye and throws it away. You take care of the other one, wipe off your ruined make-up and then wipe off the lipstick on his face. 

Your head hurts so much that you don’t know what to say to break the silence. Though you also don’t doubt that he’s in the position, and so, for the first time it doesn’t feel awkward between the two of you. 

“Hey, [Y/n], are we like… dating now?”

“I think so? You can be my date to the wedding if you want.” 

A dopey smile takes over his face. You realize you’ve made someone this happy before with merely being yourself. It fills you with a kind of warmth you’ve never felt before.

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“Your cousin won’t stop calling you,” Taehyung emphasizes as you’re pointedly ignoring your ringtone while you get ready. Considering the atrocious state both of you came back in, the process taking longer than usual shouldn’t be a surprise. Especially since you had to take turns for the shower.

Also the part where the two of you got into a fight over who should go in first—your thesis being arguably stronger once you mentioned the mud ingrained in the left sole of your feet—only slowed you down further.

“I know right? Can’t this pregnant moron get a life.”

“No, I think she’s calling you because we’re late to the wedding,” he elaborates. “You should pick up.”

“But I hate her!”

“You can roast her at the wedding and I’ll hype you up if you do what I ask.”

“Oh my god, promise?” 

“Promise.”

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“Look who finally showed up,” your cousin greets you with a tight smile. You can only return the sentiment as Taehyung dumbly trails behind you. 

Well, as much as you don’t like your cousin, the wedding is certainly nice. With a light atmosphere and a fancy ceremony, he can’t pretend he hates it—that much is certain. Though he can also tell that it’s a lot of money wasted on food that doesn’t look appetizing in the slightest the more he examines the buffet.

“I see you’re not wearing the dress I shipped to you. Is it too tight, perhaps?” She’s smiling fakely and sweetly as she waits for your answer to her provocation. Of course it’s too tight; what else could it be when she picked it two sizes smaller than what you usually wear. And she did it on purpose too.

Despite the rather mundane conversation happening, the tension is thick.

“I’m going to be quick. You look like a greasy manatee.” You give her your own uptight smile before strutting away, cueing Taehyung to follow after you.

“Pregnancy-shameeeeed,” he yells out as he offers her finger guns and speed-walks in your direction. 

Once he’s caught up with you, he speaks up again. “I know you could’ve been more brutal than that.”

“Oh please, I’m sophisticated, I’d never engage in some barbaric behavior.”

You both burst out laughing at your blatant lie. 

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“Do you think they’re dating now?” Jin asks, looking at the two of you as you dance and joke around. Though he imagines that you could only be having a deranged conversation, one that isn’t as sweet and lovey-dovey as it might look from an outsider’s perspective, it’s still quite disgusting how smitten Taehyung looks with you. 

“I don’t care,” Jungkook answers. Him saying he doesn’t care is a metaphor for how much he doesn’t care about anything after his food poisoning.

Jimin rolls his eyes. “Oh definitely. I saw them making out near a garbage dumpster when we were driving back to the hotel.”

Seokjin chokes.

[blackcatmanor]

RWBY V7 Ch11 Photo review (spoilers)

A really great episode showing a lot of good strides made by the crew as storytellers! Pictures below  

Story stuff that was good:

Fights- Both action and the fighting in Ironwood’s office was well done. So much, in fact they deserve their own mini-breakdowns: 

Combat fights:

Ironwood vs Watts- I appreciated the apparent disparity between their combat styles. Ironwood was clearly a stronger, more aggressive, and overall better fighter, but Watts used his smarts and ability to manipulate the anti-gravity fields to help gain an advantage (I called that- yay!). I am really glad how this fight played out because it shows that the crew really thought about it and didn’t just make it a generic match between two opponents. The setting and dynamics of the anti-gravity field were also great and I think this will end up being one of the top fights of all time in RWBY. 10/10 

I hated watching the end, though but for the right reasons: Watching Ironwood peel his skin off to get free from the shield was excruciating and awful to watch, which really matches the tone of the scene. Watts just sort of standing there flabbergasted was even kind of appropriate, because you could tell he expected to trap Ironwood and did not expect the lengths Ironwood would go to in order to free himself. Some of the dialogue was a bit hammy, such as “You don’t want even MORE parts of your body made of metal,” and Ironwoods “I will sacrifice WHATEVER IT TAKES to stop her” but it wasn’t too distracting.

 Tyrian vs the Qrow, Clover, and Robyn (aka the throuple). 

This fight was very well choreographed but it was overall a bit of a mixed bag, mostly good but unexpected when considering what was teased in the opening cinematic. The opening cinematic promised a lot more interaction of Qrow and Robyn, with Robyn engaging Tyrian hand-to-hand, but Robyn literally stayed on the sidelines taking pot-shots and just got the final takedown by chance. If Tyrian had just dodged that last arrow, she wouldn’t have had the takedown and cool one-liner moment at all. Clover similarly was somewhat sidelined but he definitely had way more involvement in the fight than Robyn.

However, despite my criticism that Robyn and Clover were somewhat sidelined, I actually liked how Qrow was the main force behind the fight, because it gave him a chance to get revenge for his poisoning in Vol. 4, and he landed a lot of really good punches and kicks. It’s a nice callback even though the fight was slightly muddled by the different tone previewed by the opening cinematic, which promised a lot more cooperation rather than a Qrow vs Tyrian re-match.

Fights (verbal)

The fight in Ironwood’s office was great. Some of the dialogue was a bit wonky at times but overall it had the perfect impact: I felt re-invigorated in rooting for our girls and I wanted to punch the Ace Ops in the face! The clash of ideals was awesome and shows a great juxtaposition between our idealistic huntresses who never back down from a fight even if they may not win and the  Military/Strategic and Tactical style from Atlas, with Huntsmen and Huntresses willing to sacrifice lives for a greater victory (losing the battle to win the war). 

I think they did a good job of showing subtle differences in Ace Ops, as Vine and Harriet seem more in-line with Ironwood, Marrow seemed super conflicted (bordering on miserable), and Elm was somewhat in the middle. However, as they are the military, all of them fell in line at the end, showing a possible struggle between RWBY and the Ace Ops. 

The conflict between ideologies carried into the Throuple as well, and it was a great show vs tell moment where Qrow and Robyn are allied in the idealistic paradigm, with Clover literally on the opposite side. 

Basically: 

Ruby is Captain America, Yang is the Hulk, Weiss is Ironman, Blake is Spiderman. 

Cliffhangers

The cliffhanger in this volume is much more natural than volumes 5 and 6. In the previous two volumes, the last few episodes simply chopped up existing fights and stretched them out, pausing the combat to just resume a week later. This episodes’ cliffhanger was spectacularly done. The two main combat fights of the chapter are finished, but there is still plenty of conflict set up for later, and the ideological battles seem like they will escalate naturally in the next part. I expect the next part to have a Cinder vs Winter fight, and Neo vs Oscar/his team, but I am honestly more excited to see how the ideological conflicts escalate, with RWBY/Qrow/Robyn conflicting with the Ace Ops. 

Interestingly, this style of cliffhanger also fits well with the Military style of combat, which ties into Atlas as our setting: The battles of this chapter are over and won, but it’s clear a greater war is still raging, and the next batch of battles are just around the corner.  

Story stuff that was bad not as well-executed:

Overall I have a few minor complaints- one larger than the other

Oscar’s shopping spree: Oscar has a serious addiction to take out that many robots just to disappear and go shopping again. In all seriousness though, it would have been nice to see Oscar fooled and taken, since it was teased that Neo would use her semblance to disguise as Ruby to get to him. We already knew explicitly that Neo was going after him, so the “reveal” of him being gone at the end wasn’t a reason to skip the cool part of Neo tricking him and overwhelming all the robot guards. The amount of stuff that happens with Oscar off-screen is maddening.

Ironwood’s plan has a pretty big hole in it: This one is my larger complaint. Ironwood wants to take Atlas into the sky, but everyone knows Cinder is there on campus, and Ironwood even explicitly says “For all we know Hazel’s here too.” So, why would you try to get yourself high away from Salem’s forces when possibly two of the strongest foes are hanging out right there? (ok from what we’ve seen Cinder is not the strongest, but in-canon with the Maiden powers she is supposed to be one of the strongest).

I suppose Ironwood wants to get them high enough before reinforcements can arrive, because it’s better to deal with a few saboteurs in your city than wait for Salem to show up, but the fact that they don’t address this is kind of odd. You have an unknown number of people who are actively trying to interfere with your plans and you know they are in your school- so how are you going to mitigate that threat?  

 Character stuff that was good

Ironwood- This volume has done a much better job of establishing a morally gray character, whereas the Writers totally face-planted with Ozpin in the past. You feel for Ironwood because he has good intentions, but he has been driven nearly-mad with PTSD, which has given him a hair-trigger and causes him to make irrational and objectively bad decisions. I think the story can go further with his character, with his development arc being his struggle to reign-in his fear and paranoia and redeem himself. Ironwood’s V/A is also one of the strongest, so I think he can handle the possible complexity of the character’s arc going forward.

Ruby- Ruby was really good this episode. The episode had her trying to be a confident leader by telling Salem she will fail, but her speech wasn’t cheesy or ham-fisted. It was also great to see her confidence immediately crumble seconds later with the reveal that Salem was behind Summer’s death. Ruby’s anguish was a highlight of the episode, as it was well animated and pretty well acted (the animation carried most of the weight. Lindsay’s performance was pretty good, but I think it was hard for her to play Ruby’s kid-like voice in anguish. This is another reason why I hope the Ruby kid-voice thing becomes less prevalent in the future). 

I was also super stoked on getting a better idea of what happened to Summer. This scene was great and I hope it will have a huge impact on Ruby going forward as she learns to cope with this information and overcome her grief. 

 Character stuff that was bad:

Watts, we hardly knew ye- RIP To Watts. It was nice to hear Watt’s somewhat deranged motivations, but I’m bummed he’s gone. I think he was an interesting character and it would have been great to delve into his madness more- maybe a conversation with Pietro once they knew Watts was still alive. Pietro could have been a great vessel to explain Watts’ past to the group, and establish his villainy even more. Overall, it’s unfortunate the interesting villains keep getting killed off or sidelined (Hazel where art thou?). That being said I don’t think Tyrian is done yet. I think that Salem coming means she will spring Tyrian out of custody once again, as a poetic reference to his backstory we got earlier in the chapter.

 Overall 9/10. The episode was really good with a few minor issues. The fights between people are becoming a lot more thoughtful again, with efforts to showcase individual strengths and weaknesses. Ironwood’s extreme measures are a good way to paint someone with good intentions making the worst decisions, something they failed to do in the past. The cliffhangers are much more thought-out and organic rather than just slicing big fights into chunks.   

Is her model’s giant head pasted onto a smoke body?  >,<  I kind of lol’d when Salem first appeared because of her floaty head but it becomes less distracting as her dialogue goes on. 

[writeyourownlifestory]

L-I-G-H-T-S U-P

Chapters: 4/20 Fandom: IT Rating: M Warnings: No warnings at this time Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Beverly Marsh/Ben Hanscom Additional Tags: PunkRocker!Eddie, Writer!Richie, Beveddie!Friendship, No Clown Written by: myself & @ahardlife​ Tag list: @richietoaster, @beproudtozier, @that-weird-girls-blog, @s-onora, @s-s-georgie, @bellarosewrites, @iamcupcakefrosting, @reddieonwheels, @ghostnebula, @madidraw @madi-main, @gazebobullshit, @thoughtfullyyoungduck​, @airbenderking

Puff piece writer Richie Tozier is given the chance of a lifetime to interview his celebrity crush: Dr. K, the lead singer of punk rock band, Trashmouth. Dr. K is about to release his first solo album and Richie wants to get all the dirty details. But all is not what it appears to be and the two realize they know each other from a different time, in a different place, when they were both very different people.

Chapters one, two, three

Angels - Robbie Williams 

I sit and wait Does an angel contemplate my fate And do they know The places where we go When we're grey and old 'Cause I have been told That salvation lets their wings unfold So when I'm lying in my bed Thoughts running through my head And I feel the love is dead I'm loving angels instead

Richie felt like he was running a mile a minute, even when he was behind the wheel of a car. His throat was tight and his head felt it had been pound against concrete. He rubbed his eyes behind his glasses, trying to collect himself as he sat in the parking lot of the hotel. He couldn’t go in there looking like a deranged lunatic.

He had his badge from Paper Boat and made sure to dress appropriately before heading to the hotel. He didn’t want them to think he was some kind of crazed fan who had a weapon on him. And yeah, maybe he was partially a crazed fan, but he wasn't carrying any weapon. When he went to the front desk, asking for the room number, he showed everything he had to. After checking with Dr. K’s assistant (Beverly, of course) he was given access and lead up to the suite.

He knocked on the door, practically holding his breath as he waited. And waited, and waited, and waited. And for a hot second, he thought maybe he wasn’t even there. He was a fucking rockstar for God's sake, who fucking knew what he was doing with his time!

And then the door opened and Dr. K was standing there, looking as gorgeous as ever. He didn’t seem all too surprised to see Richie there, but he also didn’t look like he was expecting him either. “Richie. Hi.”

“Hey.” He breathed softly.

“What’s up?” Dr. K asked with a soft smile. And there it was… a glimpse of the old Eddie he used to love. Used to? Or still loved? Did love ever truly die or was humanity just too soft?

“Oh. I was just . . . in the neighborhood.” Richie said, rolling on the balls of his feet, setting aside the rambling in his head. “Do you mind if I come in?”

Dr. K stood there for another moment before stepping aside. The moment he was allowed access, Richie rushed right in, his fingers combing through his hair slowly. “I lied,” he said as soon as the door was closed behind him. “I wasn’t in the neighborhood.”

“I sort of guessed that Rich,” the other said with a slight chuckle as he walked up to him.

“I came here because you’re . . . you.”

“I’m me.” Dr. K breathed out with a shrug.

“You’re . . . shit, man.” Richie began pacing back and forth, breathing deeply.

He had thought about it over and over again in the car. All the things he wanted to say to the other man. All the emotions that he had pent up and buried deep inside since they were just kids. And now it was his chance to spit it all out, but he just couldn’t.

He didn’t look like Eddie. Eddie was short and wore bobby socks and short-shorts with a rainbow pattern. A polo shirt and bleached white shoes and always carrying around an inhaler. The little boy with the perfectly cut hair and adorable dimples. That was the Eddie he knew. The Eddie he loved.

This man wasn’t that kid anymore. He was in jeans and a black shirt. Muscles that could be seen through the shirt and combed back hair. He had tattoos and bags under his eyes.

Though that smile. That stupid fucking smile was the same. Richie knew it from the moment he saw it in person.

That beautiful, boyish smile. After a decade and a half that still hasn’t changed.

“I thought you were dead!” Richie snapped after a moment, turning to face the other man. “I thought . . . you just fucking disappeared, man. You were there and then you weren’t and I never heard from you again.”

“I said goodbye,” Dr. K mentioned somberly.

But it wasn’t supposed to be their goodbye. Eddie had snuck out one final time before his mother moved them away. They were just thirteen but so much shit happened between them. They were kids who were forced to grow up due to the hate that society wore as a badge of honor.

Richie thought about that night often, dreaming of it until it slowly began to haunt him like a nightmare it was. Living with the knowledge that he’d never see this one person again. Eddie was the only person who made Richie feel like he was worth something and then he was gone in a flash and all he had left were the memories he wished he could forget.

“I tried to find you, but nothing came up,” Richie confessed to him. “Eddie Kaspbrak didn’t exist anymore.”

“He doesn’t. Not really. I don’t have personal social media or any of that shit. Beverly keeps all my personal information under lock and key.”

“This is . . . I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone, man.”

“I know this isn’t ideal Rich, but I’m glad you know.” Dr. K -- Eddie, he was Eddie -- admitted. “The moment I found out that you’d be the one interviewing me. Rich, I thought I was losing my mind.”

“ You’re losing your mind?” Richie laughed aloud. “I’ve seen you over a dozen times in concert! I have shirts with your face on them. I’ve fucking jacked off to you dude, and now I’m finding out you’re my fucking childhood sweetheart or some shit.”

“Why are you mad about this?”

“I’m not mad!” Richie snapped. “I’m just . . . I’m not good with my emotions, okay?” He moved to plop down on the couch, hiding his face in his hands. “After you left, I had no one okay? It took a ridiculously long time for me to get around with being comfortable in my skin again. I tried to forget about that time, you know? I tried to move on, but it’s hard. And I thought I accomplished it, but now you’re back and all those memories and emotions are coming back.”

Richie didn’t know if he wanted to run away or vomit. Maybe a bit of both. He honestly had no clue, but what he did know was that he needed to focus on something other than the harsh reality, mostly because it wasn’t all that harsh, to begin with.

For years he had hoped and prayed that he’d see Eddie again and know that the other guy was all right. That his mother didn’t hurt him or send him somewhere that killed his beautiful spirit. Richie didn’t know how Eddie went from being the sweet little kid with the inhaler in his fanny pack to the punk rock God that was Dr. K but he was sure the transition was interesting enough.

Eddie was beside him suddenly, a hand placed on his shoulder as they sat together on the couch. “I missed you, Rich.” He admitted quietly.

“Fuck, Eddie.”

He was Eddie. He could call him that now. He could look to this guy and not only see this amazing rock star but also his childhood best friend all grown up. They were both all grown up and that scared Richie more than anything.

“I have like . . . nine hundred questions.” He admitted with a soft laugh.

Eddie smiled in response, giving his shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Well, I’m free for the rest of the night, so if you want to ask, lay them on me.”

Richie didn’t know where to start so he just started babbling out questions at lightning speed. What the fuck happened to him after he moved away? How did he survive his mother’s intolerance? How did he join Trashmouth? Fucking Trashmouth !

“I can’t believe my favorite band is named after me,” Richie mentioned quietly. “That’s like, a total mind fuck dude.”

“The label was putting it all together and needed something extremely alternative,” Eddie admitted, leaning back on the opposite side of the couch.

They were sitting together, face to face the same way they would on the old hammock in Richie’s backyard. Legs tangled, feet near the face.

“Trashmouth sounded so ridiculous and they ended up loving it.”

“I feel like I deserve some revenue or something.” Richie teased. “All right. One name down. Now I have to know the other. Dr. K?”  

“You’re the one who gave it to me,” Edde mentioned fondly. “Every time you’d wipe out on your bike or do something to get yourself hurt, I’d bust my ass to get you fixed up.”

“Dude, I was making a Kevorkian joke,” Richie admitted, laughing as he thought back to all the teasing he had done to the poor kid until their true feelings came out.

Of course, even when they were technically an item and disgustingly in love despite only being twelve and thirteen, they still teased one another. It’s just how they were. That was their thing and it worked wonderfully for them.

“Yeah well. Some people say I kill on stage, so it works.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Richie said, raising the tiny water bottle they had taken from the minibar and sipping at it. As it turned out, Eddie wasn’t a hard drinker. He had gotten over that part of his life it seemed. He confessed to Richie that he dabbled in the rock star lifestyle a little too hard in the beginning and gave it all up so he wouldn’t join the 27-Club.

Too many nights snorting things he shouldn’t be snorting and waking up in a bed with someone whose name he never learned left Eddie slightly scarred and he wanted nothing more to do than to grow from those experiences and be better.

There were still so many things that he wanted to ask him, so many answers that he wanted, but he knew they couldn’t go over it all at this moment. He tried to keep it slow, not wanting to bombard Eddie the first time they got to do this.

Eddie was moving then, suddenly sitting up so he was in the middle of the couch, resting in the entanglement of their limbs. “Did you see me sixteen times?” He inquired.

“On the third time I had the chance to go backstage, but I dipped last minute due to my nerves,” Richie admitted, quietly wishing he had something harder to drink.

“Seriously? God, if we had . . . Rich, we could have reconnected so much earlier.”

“Trust me, you did not want to know college-Richie, okay? My hair was greasy, and my face was all sorts of fucked up. I was in the closet and I desperately needed to be held.”

“Rich. I think you’re forgetting that I used to swap spit with eighth-grade-Richie, who sounds identical to college-Richie.”

“I can’t believe you said swap-spit without cringing. Where did my little hypochondriac go?”

“I think he died of a cocaine overdose a few years back,” Eddie joked dryly, going to lay back on the couch.

“So that’s really what rock and rollers do? Do drugs, sleep around, and drink until you can’t remember your name?”

“Something like that,” Eddie drawled out. “When they put the band together I wasn’t in a good place. I was good and I knew that. People told me that constantly. People said I was talented and put little white lines in front of me and offered me girls and when I said I didn’t want girls they offered me, guys. Some people were put off with the idea of a gay rockstar but others thought it would be a new wave or inventive. Woke or whatever.”

“Will you tell me about it? How it all began?”

“What are you doing tomorrow?”

Richie raised a brow, taken aback by the question. “Wait you wanna see me again?” He asked dumbly.

“Hell yeah, I wanna see you! We have seventeen years to catch up on, asshole. I wanna know what else you’ve been doing up to this point.”

Richie snorted, really, really wishing he was drinking something stronger. “I can assure you, it won’t be half as interesting as everything you’ve been doing.”

“Let me be the judge of that.”

Eddie had something to do the following morning but he’d be free the afternoon. Richie had already told Bill that he wanted to work in the article so he’d use that excuse to not show up to the office.

It was strange, making plans like these. With a friend. With Eddie. Eddie was his friend. Not a best friend like he had been years ago, but it was still something.

Richie left the suite wondering what in the hell just happened. After years of wondering and searching, he finally found that long lost best friend and there was barely an ounce of awkwardness to it.

Okay, maybe an ounce only because it was still so hard to see him as Eddie and not Dr. K. Richie was eager to know how he got from point A to B but he’d wait for that.

If Eddie stayed in his life then he’d wait forever.

[giggle-me-this]

Should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind…


December 31st arrived, and Nate had officially gone seven days without narcotics. 


It hadn’t been like, a purposeful thing, really. He’d gone through highs and lows since—god, how long had it been since that night with Xi? Time seemed to warp in weird ways when Nate had been through, if he was being really, truly honest, mostly highs. 


But that day in the elevator with Isaac had fucked him up, too. Now every time Nate even looked at the drugs in his heavily depleted stash, he had an actual second thought about taking them. It hadn’t exactly deterred him so far, but the voice alone was something new (“you use it as an excuse to snort a load more fucking shit into your system”). He wasn’t sure if he liked it at all.


It was hardly a foolproof system, either. That day with Sol he’d been fucked up, and that was a whole fucking mess he’d rather not think about. He’d gotten shitfaced with Tyler the day before Christmas Eve, which was as enlightening as it was really depressing. And then Christmas Eve, he’d thought he’d suffer through his hangover the hard way—he couldn’t very well show up at the hospital that evening high as a kite, could he?—and then by the time he’d gotten back to the flat and started watching movies with Xi he just…hadn’t wanted to? For the first time in weeks (in years, maybe, if it was a matter of comparing holiday-to-holiday) Nate had just felt…at peace. Almost content. Okay. And that wildly out-of-character disinclination carried over, for some reason, to Boxing Day—a day that Nate honestly hadn’t been able to get through sober in six years. And then December 27th arrived and he thought, why not? I’ve gone this many hours, why not tack on a few more?


Until somehow Nate blinked and it was New Years Eve. He’d just gotten through the worst part of withdrawal—several hellish days of nausea and intense cravings and mood swings—and was now down to the almost mild-by-comparison echoes of anxiety and agitation. Nate didn’t want to soil the fresh and really very nice memory of their quiet Christmas together just days after it happened, so while it might have been rather festive to do something celebratory with Xiomara, he wasn’t gonna bug her with his tiresome addict shit. Besides, what was that superstition about ringing in the new year the way you planned to spend the rest of the following year? If Nate’s experiences with Xi these past few months was any indication, she’d want to start off the next year with some goddamn peace and quiet, and definitely no drama.


Nate thought about meeting up with Harriet, too—he actually checked in with her via text to see what she was doing—but again, the best way to start a new year for both of them was probably with a little bit of fucking independence. 


Which, like, okay, sure. It wasn’t ideal but Nate was a fucking adult, and given recent events he seemed set to be on his own kind of a lot, now. And he needed to be able to be okay with that—he needed to prove to himself, at least, that he could function without constant fucking supervision and not nosedive immediately into the shitty dumpster-fire black abyss of rock bottom. 


So he was going to go out tonight on his own, and he wasn’t going to do drugs. Yes. Great. Wonderful.


He was absolutely going to drink though; just because he was trying to make better decisions didn’t mean he was fucking deranged. 


Night rolled around and Nate somehow found himself wandering around SOHO. Being in self-enforced exile from the magical parts of town (or maybe actual exile, Nate honestly hadn’t even tried venturing there yet) meant that he had much more time to learn all about the ins and out of No-Maj London. Something about the atmosphere of SOHO drew Nate in like a gravitational field; it reminded him a lot of Manhattan, in a lot of ways. He could easily blend in here just as he’d done there, noticed for wonderfully superficial and surface-level reasons and invisible in regards to his last name, his legacy, and the weight of all his fucking mistakes. He flitted easily in and out of bars, drinking scotch and champagne, flirting just enough for a half-hour of entertainment and then drifting somewhere new just as easily. It was carefree and intuitive. Nate felt good. 


So good that by the time midnight rolled around, Nate was actually taken a bit by surprise. He accepted a glass of champagne that was offered to him just before the start of the countdown, content to wait out the big moment in his own company. That one was actually a choice this year and not a necessity of circumstance—a tradition, actually, almost, at this point. Maybe it was just all of the prime-time teen dramas that Nate had binge-watched over the years, but kissing someone at midnight on New Years just felt like too much pressure and commitment. Plus it seemed kinda tacky. 


So Nate just smirked as the countdown began, arms crossed over his chest, eyeing over the intoxicated, expectant energy of the crowded room. His eyes passed over a certain head of hair, a particular skin tone that wow, really kinda resembled—but no, it couldn’t be. His heart did a double-thump in his chest. Nate was imagining it, surely. Wishful thinking. His fucking shrew of a subconscious, bitchily reminding Nate that if you could be kissing anyone in the world right now, who would it be? 


A mind in the throes of withdrawal could play some awful tricks on a person.


Just to reassure himself of his own delusions, Nate’s gaze flickered back to the stranger in the crowd. Except this time that stranger was looking directly back and him and Nate nearly fucking choked because either 1) his champagne had at some point been spiked and Nate had graduated to full-blown hallucinations or 2) that was really Isaac fucking Ortega, somehow at this same fucking bar on this same fucking night, getting pretty fucking heated with some other guy not one hundred feet from where Nate was standing. 


And fucking looking at him. Like that.


Nate swallowed, and blinked a few times, and shook his head. But when he looked back it was the same; Isaac was looking at him, certainly had recognized him, and was—what, waiting? Expectant? Of what? 


There were a lot of things Nate wanted to do within that one second. Nod, wave. Shove his way through all these fucking people in Isaac’s direction; in the opposite direction. Flip him a rude hand gesture. Smirk. 


Kiss him, was the one overwhelming and impossible thought. 


Celebratory cheers and commotion erupted all around Nate. Midnight. Happy fucking New Year. 


Nate was about to do something forcibly casual—a peace offering, maybe?—tip his glass from afar; see? We can exist in the same universe without it imploding in on itself. But then this fucking guy that Isaac was standing next to was suddenly kissing him, intensely, and a wave of heat flooded through Nate’s body. He was going to look away before he actually, like, winced, or something equally mortifying, but then he couldn’t—he actually physically couldn’t—because Isaac fucking Ortega was holding Nate’s gaze in an iron grip; he was watching Nate purposefully as his mouth and his hands did all of fucking that, and the look in his unwavering eyes was entirely, infuriatingly knowing. Isaac knew exactly what the fuck he was doing, and exactly how the fuck Nate would be feeling about it. It was obvious. And he was enjoying it. 


Nate’s mouth fell open just a little, and his expression did a lot of things at once, simultaneously darkening in an angry how-fucking-dare-you-you-absolute-egotistical-prick and brightening in an unfortunate, begrudgingly keen-as-fuck-why-is-that-not-me-when-you-clearly-want-it-to-be way. Didn’t he? Nate could never, ever read Isaac and this whole display was about a hundred times more confusing than anything he’d ever done or said to Nate before. Was this still just another fucking game?


Well if it was a game it was one that two could play at. Impulsively, Nate downed his entire glass of champagne and then grabbed the first person that walked by and attempted conversation with him—a striking redhead who was all legs and curves, who had fortunately been making eyes at Nate across the bar about a half hour ago. Nate kissed her hard and vindictive and her fingers tugged aggressively in his hair and at the buttons on the front of his shirt, her tongue in his mouth like venom while her reddish-pink lipstick smeared all over his mouth. 


Nate poured all of his spite and needy, overwhelming, misplaced desire into this one frenzied kiss with a total stranger, and when he pulled away from her he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked back at Isaac, daring. Your move, dickhead. 


A challenge that was quickly accepted; Isaac’s cocky smirk sent another dart of heat straight through Nate. His eyes widened just a little as he watched. It was a good move, admittedly. Just another game of Wizard’s Chess. 


Fuck. Fuck you. I can’t fucking stand you. Every minute we’ve ever been together has been—


You arrogant fucking prick, I want to grab you and shove you up against a wall and—


Every second that this went on was increasingly agonizing. Blissful, excruciating agony. Nate wanted so fucking much and he couldn’t do a goddamn thing about it. He really wanted to just put a firm end to this self-imposed hateful endless suffering, but he just couldn’t. He couldn’t look away. Not yet. 


Until Isaac’s attention—his whole body, actually—was finally, definitively, pulled away. Nate blinked into the empty space that Isaac had left behind and in the span of about one minute, he tumbled hard and fast into feeling absolutely, exceedingly awful. 


He moved to make some sort of hasty retreat, but the redhead Nate had definitely forgotten about grabbed him by the forearm and whispered into his ear with whiskey and coke and grenadine on her breath, “Where you off to, Daddy?” 


Nate cringed at that and dismissively pushed her off. Ugh, Jesus Christ, fuck that. He needed to get out of here, now, like right this very second. He shoved his way to an exit and gulped in cold air. His hands were shaking. The nausea was back, hard. His breathing was picking up and Nate was starting to panic but his brain was moving too fast to consider why. 


All he knew was that he needed drugs. He needed them. Now, right fucking now. Fuck sobriety. Fuck everything. He tore through his pockets even though he knew very well there was nothing there. 


It was fine, he’d just go back to the flat. He’d go back to his and Xi’s flat and up to his room and Nate would just take, like, whatever was there. A bunch of fucking pills. And then this horrible feeling in his stomach and in his chest and in his brain would be gone. The heat was rushing through his body again but not in a good way, this time. 


“I’m not going to be an excuse for you to keep fucking up your life.” 


It was about ten years too fucking late for that.
The heat inside him rose up and Nate vomited, hunched over, leaning his hand against the side of the bar’s exterior wall. 


Then he apparated back to the flat and took a very, very cold shower. He brushed his teeth. 


“Happy New Year, Xi,” Nate called softly into her room, his voice hoarse, before he tumbled into his bed with his hair still wet and fell almost immediately into a restless sleep.


Happy fucking New Year, indeed.

[the-truth-behind-redacted]

Dome’s Way Home

Dear Locket, Entry 5

While it's not exactly the most thrilling for me, it's now blatantly clear to me that there is more than the Sp-Tem(s) exist in this place. I also have reason to suspect that they are sentient on some level. Of course, the word I could be looking for is sapient but I have no way to check even if it is. The flashes of explosions break the field of vision and the calls of many different things echo above. It's very clear to me this is a war front and not some happenstance battle of two giant beasts. What worries me is that I'm slowly moving forward to that locations though it's angled off from my path.

However, the main fear I have about this is that war is an organized institution, or however you would describe it, and it requires some form of societal structure. I'm not saying it has to be advanced or even something like ours but a group with a unified reason to fight against another is near textbook war. This should go without saying that I am by no means at this point an expert of how things work here so for all I know this is a territory battle between two apex preditor groups that just because of the very alien way of these beings has caused me to confuse it for war. Hell, what the fuck do I know?

Way before I reached my current position where the battle is as clear as it is now, I decided to do a few other tests. The first one was just for documentation, however embarrassing it may have been, of testing sexual functions. I covered in either my first or second entry that many psychical functions don't affect me. This being the need for sleep, lack of fatigue, food and water, and the need for restrooms. Also, besides the auto weapon, no physical strain has been happening to me. This left one obvious bodily function that I needed to test while inside this undefined place.

To make a very uncomfortable story short, the answer is yes. I did feel an increase in body temperature during the progress as well as self-lubrication. Climax also happened with the excretion of climaxal fluid. Thought this was a humiliating process an interesting thing to note after is that I did feel a form of physical fatigue after climax. This, however, has made it clear that my bodily functions are still working, they just seem to be in a form of suspended animation until some very exact stimulus activates them. Why sexual stimulation is one of them, I don't know but it's very strange to me. That is to say, slightly more strange than literally everything else that's been going on.

Now on to the real reason why I'm writing this entry, I have found some semblance of a civilization in this deranged world. I call it a semblance because all that's left seems to be shattered domes that I can only guess served as some sort of shelter. This is built in the center of a mass of intersecting paths which only seems to suggest that these paths weren't built. They just seem to have been here beforehand. That would explain why these paths just stretch on endlessly without any seeming purpose or reason of existence.

There's something unspeakably horrific about this. It all seems so humanoid. Of course, it's not like any human structure I've seen but once more drawing back from old history, there was a group of people known as Esca-to. They were a group of nomadic people who lived in frigid temperature. I'm not quite sure how one would live in the cold without technology but they survived there for hundreds of thousands of years, supposedly. Then again, there wasn't a climate on Gee-Gerotous that could be considered cold. It is pretty temperate all over.

Anyways, the Esca-tos lived in the upper Northern Hemisphere of the planet Earth where it was mostly fridged. There was a lot of ice and snow that covered everything. Well, because of the climate in these areas, there weren't as many basic building resources. So instead of wood or clay, they used compactable snow. These igloos basic structure featured a dome of compacted snow with a relatively small crawl space for a person to get in.

Now, this information is the only common beliefe from what we have. Ancient historians disagree about much of this, especially the condition to why Igloos were the common form of housing, if they were even the common form of housing, if the Esca-tos were even the pioneers of this form of housing, and much more. Hell, there isn't even an agreement if the word Igloo was even used to refer to these housings. This is just the current working theory. It's hard to be 100% about anything if you don't have an active site to investigate, which brings me to this ruin (though I don't think snow would preserve well over thousands of years).

The site was massive, and I'm still quite impressed with how many different paths intersected in this one area to create as much space as it has. Many of the domes have caved in over time. In total there are 13 large domes and it's hard to tell how many smaller ones existed. It seems that before whatever was here simply abandoned this site, many of the smaller destroyed domes were piled together. Of the small domes that still exist there are about 15, only slightly more than the big ones. I guess the ones that weren't destroyed when they left are now the ones that caved over time.

It's important to mention that the terms small and big are absolutely relative terms to each other. I'm a decently sized woman, 5'8 (173cm), and the "crawl spaces" open up to well over my body size. If I was to estimate the size of the entire platform this was made on is about 5.5km*6km. The size kept within each of the large domes are larger than what most usual household sizes are from my world. Each large dome could house many families with enough space to segregate each family with walls to allow privacy. However, looking at some of the basic structures found in the domes that haven't completely collapsed suggest that they were used to only house one being.

The most intact large dome had only the entrance collapsed and some of the very center of the ceiling which fell into the housing. It took quite a while to move much of the mysterious crystal substance which seemed to compose everything in this world. Upon entering the first thing I saw was a bed structure. For the first time ever it was something that wasn't purple! Drape over a rectangular base was a golden "fur." Touching it wasn't comfortable at all. The fibers were like needles and I did puncture the tip of one of my fingers. If I die from an infection because of this, I'm going to be pissed. Well dead but I'm going to be pissed while I die that is if suffering doesn't consume me which it most likely will.

Carefully pulling it off saw what was underneath. The case was hollowed out and there was some kind of comforter. It was seamed together with a hardy pelt. It did bend and flow like a pillow but it wasn't quite as soft. I made a knife as a tool from my weapon, which only took a bit of focus, and cut it open. I pulled out what looked to like scales. Their color was a glistening velvet, green, and sea blue. They were surprisingly malleable. Each segment was lined and seamed together.  Honestly, it looks now a bit more like a sofa than a bed but it really doesn't share a similar look. Maybe if I flipped it but it's just a crystal flat surface. I don't understand its design.

I glanced around the room and much of the furniture was very much overside for me. Many of the chairs were like the oversized bar stools that go up to your waist. These were quite a bit larger, going up to my chest. I lifted myself up onto one and looked at the desk. There was an assortment of little nick-nacks. An object I recognized was an object to represents the physical property for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Known to us as the Casacal's Formation, named after the physicist from the group that uplifted our civilization to our current technological level, it has a set of objects evenly held together and lined up, in which one pulls one side of the formation letting it go and collide with a part that is resting which will cause the other end to launch out, pull back, and hit the resting part of the formation causing this to happen until one stops it or friction drags to a stop. Here, its called "Newton's cradle."

Another object was some weird singularity. Contained in a black tinted glass container, there is a swirling mass of energy that expands, contracts, and then condenses again in a flash of light before separating into two other masses of energy colliding and begin the cycle again. On the base on which the glass sphere containing the singularity it's labeled as "Matter Apperation Separation Cycle." It certainly doesn't seem to be scientific like Casacal's Formation as it didn't seem to be any kind of natural source causing the separation and recombination of the energy contained inside. There is also a warning on it saying to be careful when handling. I can only assume because the energy could cause massive damage if broken. I decided to put this in my bag in case I need a makeshift grenade.

There were three other objects on the desk. Two of the items seemed to be a computer. At least that what I think it is. Another object is a complicated assortment of in grove details, crystals that aren't purple (I'm sure God doesn't even know where the fuck those came from), and a broken set of what appears to be wires. Looking at what I would assume to be the computer tower, there's a massive empty section inside plus a bunch of other things that look like this world's tech. There's another object that looks like what I would think are fans. They are weird inserts with tubes running into them that have slits that air could pass through.

I don't know for sure but it all seems to be intact. All that appears to be damaged is what I would guess to be an internal power source. Near the possible internal power source and a possible computer tower is what could possibly be a monitor. It is really fucking big and very flat and has some kind of thin film screened over what reflects back as, what else, purple. I can see myself in its reflection and boy have I seen better days. This isn't important!

This old thing (I assume it's old) has really sparked my interest. Hopefully, somewhere around here there are instructions about this thing or at least manufacturing notes. Actually, wouldn't manufacturing notes be rarer than basic instructions of the product? Oh god, I'm beginning to treat this journal like it's a person that can answer my questions. I'm losing it. FUCK, focus you, dumb bitch. Alright, beyond the rest weird furniture that is around this place there doesn't seem to be anything else of interest. There are still quite a few other locations for me to check out. For now, I'll cut this and do another entry on the rest I find in the other caved in domes. I'll also check the crystal piles as well.

[unsettlingshortstories]

Magdala Amygdala

Lucy A. Snyder (2012)

I was bound, though I have not bound. I was not recognized. But I have recognized that the All is being dissolved, both the earthly and the heavenly.

—The Gospel of Mary Magdalene

“So how are you feeling?” Dr. Shapiro’s pencil hovers over the CDC risk evaluation form clamped to her clipboard.

“Pretty good.” When I talk, I make sure my tongue stays tucked out of sight. I smile at her in a way that I hope looks friendly, and not like I’m baring my teeth. The exam-room mirror reflects the back of the good doctor’s head. Part of me wishes the silvered glass were angled so I could check my expression; the rest of me is relieved that I can’t see myself.

Nothing existed before this. The present and recent past keep blurring together in my mind, but I’ve learned to take a moment before I reply to questions, speak a little more slowly to give myself the chance to sort things out before I utter something that might sound abnormal. My waking world seems to have been taken apart and put back together so that everything is just slightly off, the geometries of reality deranged.

Most of my memories before the virus are as insubstantial as dreams; the strongest of them feel like borrowed clothing. The sweet snap of peas fresh from my garden. The crush of hot perfumed bodies against mine at the club and the thud of the bass from the huge speakers. The pleasant twin burns of the sun on my shoulders and the exertion in my legs as I pedal my bike up the mountainside.

The life I had in those memories is gone forever. I don’t know why this is happening to humanity. To me. I’d like to think there’s some greater purpose, some meaning in all this, but God help me, I just can’t see it.

“So is the new job going well? Are you able to sleep?” My doctor shines a penlight in my eyes and nostrils and marks off a couple of boxes. Thankfully, she doesn’t ask to see my tongue. It’s the same set of questions every week; I’d have to be pretty far gone to answer badly and get myself quarantined. The endless doctor-visits wear down other Type Threes, but I hang onto the belief that someday there might be actual help for me here.

I nod. “It’s fine. I have blackout curtains; sleep’s not a problem. They seem pretty happy with my work.”

My new supervisor is a friendly guy, but he always has an excuse for why he can’t meet with me in person, preferring to call me on his cell phone for our weekly chats. I used to bounce from building to building, repairing computers, spending equal amounts of time swapping gossip and hardware. After I got out of the hospital, I went on the graveyard shift in the company’s cold network operations center. These nights, I’m mostly raising processes from the dead, watching endless scrolling green text on cryptic black screens. I’m pretty sure the company discreetly advised my quiet coworkers to carry tasers and mace just in case.

“Do you feel that you’re able to see your old friends and family often enough?” Dr. Shapiro asks.

“Sure,” I lie. “We meet online for games and we talk in Vent. It’s fun.”

For the sake of his own health, my boyfriend took a job and apartment in another state; we speak less and less on the phone. What is there to say to him now? We can’t even chat about anything as simple as food or wine; I must subsist on bananas, rice, apple juice, and my meager allotment of six Bovellum capsules per day. The law says I can’t go to crowded places like theaters and concerts. I only glimpse the sun when I’m hurrying from the shelter of my car’s darkly tinted windows to monthly 8:00 a.m. appointments with my court-ordered physician.

So I’m striding up the street to Dr. Shapiro’s office, my head down, squinting behind sunglasses, when suddenly I hear a man in the park across the street shouting violent nonsense. Or he used to be a man, anyhow; he’s wearing construction boots, ragged Carhartt work overalls, and a dirty gray T-shirt, all freshly spattered with the blood of the woman whose head he is enthusiastically cracking open against the curb. He howls at the sky, and I can see he’s missing some teeth. Probably whatever he did for a living didn’t pay him enough to see a dentist. But his skin looks flush and smooth, so much healthier than mine, and for a moment I envy him.

He stops howling and meets my shadowed stare, breaking into a gory, gap-toothed smile. The kind of grin you give an old, dear friend. I’ve never laid eyes on this wreck before, and the woman beneath him is beyond anyone’s help. They both are. I don’t want to be outed, not here, not like this, so I pretend I don’t even see him and stride on.

A few seconds later, I hear the spat of rifle fire and the thud of a meaty body hitting the pavement, and I know that the SWAT team just took out Ragged Carhartts. They’re never far away, not in this part of town. And once they’ve taken out one Type Three, they don’t need much excuse to kill another, even if you’re just trying to see your doctor like a good citizen.

“Oh, God,” a lady says. She and another fortyish woman are standing in the doorway of an art gallery, staring horrified at the scene behind me. They’re both wearing batik dresses and lots of handmade jewelry. “That’s the third one this month.”

“If this keeps up, we’ll have to close.” The other woman shakes her head, looking gray-faced. “Nobody will want to come here. The whole downtown will die. Not just us. The theaters, the museums, churches—everything.”

“I heard something on NPR about a new kind of gel to keep the virus from spreading,” the first woman replies, sounding hopeful.

I keep moving. Her voice fades away. People still talk about contagion control as if it matters, as if masks and sanitizers and prayers can stop the future.

The truth is, unless you’ve been living in some isolated Tibetan monastery, you’ve already been exposed to Polymorphic Viral Gastroencephalitis. Maybe it gave you a bit of a headache and some nausea, but after a few days’ bed rest you were going out for Thai again. Congratulations! You’re Type One and you probably don’t even know it.

But maybe the headache turned into the worst you’ve ever had, and you started vomiting up blood and then your stomach lining, and when you came out of the hospital you’d lost the ability to digest most foods and to make certain proteins. And in the absence of those proteins, your body has trouble growing and healing. The enzymes your DNA uses to repair itself don’t work very well anymore.

Sunlight is no longer your friend. Neither are x-rays. Even if you quit smoking and keep yourself covered up like a virgin in the Rub’ Al Khali, your skin cracks and your body sprouts tumors. Your brain begins to degenerate; you start talking to yourself in second person. Sooner or later, you develop lesions on your frontal lobe and hippocampus that cause a variety of behaviors which will lead to your friendly neighborhood SWAT team putting a .308 bullet through your skull. That means you’re a Type Two, or maybe a Type Three, like me.

If you’re Type Four, we aren’t having this conversation. Unless you’re a ghost. You aren’t a ghost, are you? I don’t think I believe in them. But if you were a Type Four, your whole GI tract got stripped. I hope you were lucky and had a massive brain bleed right when it got really bad, and you never woke up.

I’m pretty sure I woke up.

“Do you find yourself having any unwanted thoughts or violent fantasies?” Dr. Shapiro asks.

“Of course not.” I try to sound mildly indignant.

There’s one upside, if it can be called that. If you lived past all the pain and vomiting, the symptoms of your chronic disease can be alleviated, if you consume sufficient daily quantities of one of a couple of raw protein sources.

If the best protein source for you is fresh human blood, congratulations, you are a Type Two! Provided you have a fat bank account, or decent health insurance, or are quick with a razor and fast on your feet, you can resume puberty or your athletic career. Watch out for HIV; it’s a killer.

If, however, the best source for you comes from sweet, custard-like brains . . . you are a Type Three. Your situation is much more problematic. And expensive. You better have a wealthy family or truly excellent insurance. Or mob connections. Otherwise, sooner or later, you’ll end up trying to crack open someone’s skull in public. The only question then is if you’ll get that one moment of true gustatory bliss right before you die.

I have excellent health insurance. There’s no bliss for me. What I and every other upstanding, gainfully-employed, fully-covered Type Three citizen gets is an allotment of refrigerated capsules containing an unappetizing gray paste. Mostly it’s cow brains and antioxidant vitamins with just the barest hint of pureed cadaver white matter. It’s enough to keep your skin and brains from ulcerating. It’s enough to keep your nose from rotting off. It’s enough to help you think clearly enough to function at your average white-collar job.

It is not enough to keep you from constantly wishing you could taste the real thing.

“I was wondering about something,” I say, as Dr. Shapiro begins to copy the contents of her survey into the exam room computer.

She stops typing and gives me a wary smile. “Yes, what is it?”

“My medication. I feel okay, you know? But I think I could feel . . . better. If I could have a little more?” I’m choosing my words as carefully as possible. My tongue feels thick, twitchy.

I can’t talk about the cravings I’m feeling. I can’t mention wanting more energy, because nobody in charge wants someone like me feeling energetic.

I wonder if there’s a sniper watching from behind the mirror on the wall; has he tightened his grip on his rifle? Are gas canisters waiting to blow in the air conditioner vent above me? My skin itches in dread anticipation.

Dr. Shapiro hedges. “Well, I know there’s been a shortage of raw materials these days.”

I swallow down my impatience and worry. The capsules are ninety-eight percent cow brains, for God’s sake. Probably they can squeeze a single human brain for thousands of doses. I can’t imagine the pharmaceutical companies are running short of anything.

“Could you check, just the same? Could you ask for me?” I sound meek. Pathetic. The opposite of hostile. That’s good.

She gives me a pitying look and sighs. The mirror doesn’t explode in gunfire. Gas doesn’t burst from the vents.

“I’ll see what I can do,” my doctor says.

I try to believe she’ll come through for me.

• • • •

I go home. I take my capsules with some Mott’s apple juice. I rinse my mouth out with peroxide and don’t look at my tongue. I rub salve on the places my clothes have rubbed raw, and I climb naked into my bed. Sometime later, the alarm goes off, and I rise, shower, dress, and drive to work in darkness.

My shift is dull-clockwork, until just after gray drizzling dawn, when one of the new tech leads comes in to talk to my coworker George about some of the emergency server protocols. I haven’t seen this young man before; he’s wearing snug jeans and the sleeves of his black polo shirt are tight over biceps tattooed with angels and devils. His blond hair is cut close over a smooth, high-browed skull. He starts talking about database errors, but he’s thinking about a gig he has with his band on Friday night, and it suddenly hits me not just that I know what he’s thinking but that I know because I can smell the sweet chemicals shifting inside his brain. The chemicals tell me his name is Devin.

I am filled with Want in the marrow of my bones. I am filled with Need from eyeballs to soles. I excuse myself and hurry out into the mutagenic morning and punch Betty’s number into my cell. Soon after we met, she made me promise not to save her details in my phone, just in case anything went wrong.

It’s early for her. But she answers on the third ring. Speaking in the casual code we’ve used since we met online, we agree to meet that evening. It’s her turn to host.

I sleep fitfully. When my alarm goes off, I call in sick, shower, dress, and check my phone. Betty’s texted a cryptic string of letters and numbers for my directions. And so I drive out to a hotel we’ve never visited before, drinking Aquafinas the whole way. It’s a dark old place, once grand, now crumbling away in a forgotten corner of downtown. I wonder if she’s running short of money or if the extra anonymity of the place was crucial to her.

Still, as I get out my car and double-check my locks in the pouring rain, I can’t help but peer out into the oppressive black spaces in the parking lot, trying to figure out if any of the shadows between the other vehicles could be lurking cops or CDC agents. The darkness doesn’t move, so I hurry to the front door, head down, hands jammed in my raincoat pockets, my stomach roiling with worry and anticipation. I avoid making eye contact with any of the damp, tired-looking prostitutes smoking outside the hotel’s front doors. None of them pay any attention to me.

My phone chimes as Betty texts me the room number. I take the creaking, urine-stinking elevator up four floors. My pace slows as I walk down the stained hallway carpet, and I pause for a moment before I knock on the door of Room 512. What if the watchers tapped Betty’s phone? What if she’s not here at all? My poised hand quivers as my heart seems to pound out “A trap—a trap—a trap.”

I swallow. Knock twice. Step back. A moment later, Betty answers the door, wearing her Audrey Hepburn wig and a black cocktail dress that hangs limply from her skeletal shoulders. It’s appalling how much weight she’s lost; her eyes have turned entirely black, the whites permanently stained by repeated hemorrhages.

But she smiles at me, and I find myself smiling back, warmed by the first spark of real human feeling I’ve had in months. I have to believe that we’re still human. I have to.

“You ready?” Her question creaks like the hinge of a forgotten gate.

“Absolutely.” My own voice is the dry fluttering of moth wings.

She locks the door behind me. “I’m sorry this place is such a pit, but the guy at the Holiday Inn started asking all kinds of questions, and this was the best I could do on short notice.”

“It’s okay.” The room isn’t as seedy as the lobby and exterior led me to expect it to be, and it’s got a couch in addition to the queen-sized bed. Betty has already covered the couch and the carpet in front of it with a green plastic tarpaulin. Her stainless steel spritzer bottle leans against a couch arm.

“Want some wine?” She gestures toward an unopened bottle of Yellow Tail shiraz on the dresser.

“Thanks, but no . . . I couldn’t drink it right now. Maybe after.”

She nods. “There’s a really good Italian restaurant around the corner. Kind of a Goodfellas hangout, but everything’s homemade. Great garlic bread.”

Betty pulls off the wig. Before she got the virus, she could grow her thick chestnut hair clear down to her waist. I’ve never seen it except in pictures; her bare scalp gleams pale in the yellow light from the chandelier.

The scar circumscribing her skull looks red, inflamed; I wonder if she’s been seeing other Type Threes. I quickly tamp down my pang of jealousy. We never agreed to an exclusive arrangement. And maybe she just had to go to the hospital instead; she told me she’s got some kind of massive tumor on her pituitary.

She looks so frail. I can’t possibly begrudge her what comfort she can get. I should just be grateful that she agrees to see me when I need her.

And, oh sweet Lord, do I need her tonight.

Betty pulls me down to her for a kiss. Her hands are icy, but her lips are warm. She slips her tongue into my mouth, and I can taste sweet cerebrospinal fluid mingled in her saliva. The tumor must have cracked the bony barriers in her skull. Before I have a chance to try to pull away, my own tongue is swelling, toothed pores opening and nipping at her slippery flesh.

She squeaks in pain and we separate.

“Sorry,” I try to whisper. But my tongue is continuing to engorge and lengthen, curling back on itself and slithering down my own throat; I can feel the tiny maws rasping against my adenoids.

“It’s okay.” Her wan smile is smeared with blood. “We better get started.”

She kisses the palm of my hand and begins to take my clothes off. I stare up at the tawdry chandelier, watching a fly buzz among the dusty baubles and bulbs. When I’m naked, she slips off her cocktail dress and leads me to the tarp-covered couch.

“Be gentle.” She presses a short oyster knife into my hand and sits me down, the plastic crackling beneath me. I nod, barely keeping my lips closed over my shuddering tongue, and spread my legs.

With slow exhalation, Betty settles between my thighs, her back to me. She’s a tiny woman, her head barely clearing my chin when we’re seated, so this position works best. Her skin is already covered in goose bumps. The anticipation is killing both of us.

I carefully run the tip of the sharp oyster knife through the red scar around her skull; there’s relatively little blood as I cut through the tissue. Betty gives a little gasp and grips my knees, her whole body tensed. The bone has only stitched back together in a few places; I use the side-to-side motion she showed me to gently pry the lid of her skull free.

She moans when I expose her brain; it’s the most beautiful thing I could hope to see. Her dura mater glistens with a half-inch slick of golden jelly. Brain honey. When I breathe in the smell of her, I feel my blood pressure rise hard and fast.

I set the bowl of skin and bone aside and present the knife to her in my outstretched left hand. With a flick of her wrist, she slits the vein in the crook of my arm and presses her mouth against my bleeding flesh. I wrap my cut arm around her head and pull her tight to my breast.

I open my mouth and let my tongue unwind like an eel into her brainpan. It wriggles there, purple and gnarled, the tiny maw sucking down her golden jelly. It’s delicious, better than caviar, better than ice cream, better than anything I’ve had in my mouth before. Sweet and salty and tangy and perfect.

The jelly gives me flashes of her memories and dreams; she’s been with other Type Threes. She’s helped them murder people. I don’t care. I keep drinking her in, my tongue probing all the corners of her skull and sheathed wrinkles of her brain to get every last gooey drop.

I can control my tongue, but just barely. It’s hard to keep it from doing the one thing I’d dearly love, which is to drive it through her membrane deep between her slippery lobes. But that would be the end of her. The end of us. No more, all over, bye bye.

A little of what my body and soul craves is better than nothing at all. Isn’t it?

My arm aches, and I’m starting to feel lightheaded on top of the high. We’re both running dry. I release her, spritz her brain with saline and carefully put the top of her head back into place. She’s full of my blood, and already her scalp is sealing back together. We’ve done well; we spilled hardly anything on the tarp this time. But my face feels sticky, and I’ve probably even gotten her in my hair.

She daintily wipes my blood from the corners of her mouth and smiles at me. Her skin is pink and practically glowing, and her boniness seems chic rather than diseased. “Want to go to that Italian place after we get cleaned up?”

“Sure.” I’m probably glowing, too. My stomach feels strong enough for pepperoncinis.

I head to the bathroom to wash my face, but when I push open the door—

—I find myself in Dr. Shapiro’s office. She’s staring down at an MRI scan of somebody’s chest. The monochrome bones look strange, distorted.

“There’s definitely a mass behind your ribs and spine. It’s growing fast, but I can’t definitely say it’s cancer.”

I’m dizzy with terror. How did I get here? What mass? How long have I had a mass?

“What should we do?” I stammer.

She looks up at me with eyes as solidly black as Betty’s. “I think we should wait and see.”

I back away, turn, push through her office door—

—and I’m back in a rented room. But not the downtown dive with the dusty chandelier. It’s a suburban motel someplace. Have I been here before?

The green tarp on the king-sized bed is covered in blood and bits of skull. There’s a body wrapped in black trash bags, stuffed between the bed and the writing desk. Did I do that? What have I done?

Oh, God, please make this stop. I have to lean against the wall to keep myself from tumbling backward.

Betty comes out of the bathroom, dressed in a spattered silk negligee. I think it used to be white. There’s gore in her wig. Her eyes go wide.

“I told you not to come here!” She grabs me by my arm, surprising me with her strength. In the distance, I can hear sirens. “They’ll be here any minute—get away from here, fast as you can!”

She presses a set of rental car keys into my palm, hauls me to the door and pushes me out into the hallway—

—and I’m stepping into the elevator at work.

Handsome blond Devin is in there. A look of surprised fear crosses his face, and I know the very sight of me repels him. His hand goes to his jeans pocket. I see the outline of something that’s probably a canister of pepper spray. It’s too small to be a taser.

But then he pauses, smiles at me. “Hey, you going up to that training class?”

I nod mechanically, and try to say “Sure,” but my lungs spasm and suddenly I’m doubled over, coughing into my hands. When did simply breathing start hurting this much?

“You okay?” Devin asks.

I try to nod, but there’s bright blood on my palms. A long-forgotten Bible verse surfaces in the swamp of my memory: Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth.

I look up and see my reflection in the chromed elevator walls—my face is gaunt, but my body is grotesquely swollen. I’ve turned into some kind of hunchback. How long have I had the mass?

Instead of the pepper spray, Devin’s pulled his cell phone out. I can smell his mind. He’s torn between wanting to run away and wanting to help. “Should I call someone? Should I call 911?”

The elevator is filled with the scent of him. Despite my pain and sickness, the Want returns with a vengeance. Adrenaline rises along with my blood pressure. My tongue is twitching, and something in my back, too. I can feel it tearing my ribs away from my spine. It hurts more than I can remember anything ever hurting. Maybe childbirth would be like this.

Betty. I need Betty. How long has it been since I’ve seen her? Oh God.

“Call 911,” I try to say, but I can’t take a breath, can’t speak around the tongue writhing backward down my throat.

“What can I do?” Devin touches my shoulder.

And the feel of his hand against my bony flesh is far too much for me to bear.

I rise up under him, grab him by the sides of his head, kissing him. My tongue goes straight down his throat, choking him. He hits me, trying to shake me off, but as strong as he is, my Want is stronger.

When he’s unconscious, I let him fall and hit the emergency stop button. The Want has me wrapped tightly in its ardor, burning away all my human qualms. The alarm is an annoyance, and I know I don’t have as much time as I want. Still. As I lift his left eyelid, I take a moment to admire his perfect bluebonnet iris.

And then I plunge my tongue into his eye. The ball squirts off to the side as my organ drills deeper, the tiny mouths rasping through the thin socket bone into his sweet frontal lobe. After the first wash of cerebral fluid I’m into the creamy white meat of him, and—

—Oh, God. This is more beautiful than I imagined.

I’m devouring his will. Devouring his memories. Living him, through and through. His first taste of wine. His first taste of a woman. The first time he stood onstage. He’s at the prime of his life, and oh, it’s been a wonderful life, and I am memorizing every second of it as I swallow down the contents of his lovely skull.

When he’s empty, I rise from his shell and feel my new wings break free from the cage of my back. As I spread them wide in the elevator, I realize I can hear the old gods whispering to me from their thrones in the dark spaces between the stars.

I smile at myself in the distorted chrome walls. Everything is clear to me now. I have been chosen. I have a purpose. Through the virus, the old gods tested me, and deemed me worthy of this holiest of duties. There are others like me; I can hear them gathering in the caves outside the city. Some died, yes, like the ragged man, but my Becoming is almost complete. Nothing as simple as a bullet will stop me then.

The Earth is ripe, human civilization at its peak. I and the other archivists will preserve the memories of the best and brightest as we devour them. We will use the blood of this world to write dark, beautiful poetry across the walls of the universe.

For the first time in my life, I don’t need faith. I know what I am supposed to do in every atom in every cell of my body. I will record thousands of souls before my masters allow me to join them in the star-shadows, and I will love every moment of my mission.

I can hear the SWAT team rush into the foyer three stories below. Angry ants. I can hear Betty and the others calling to me from the hollow hills. Smiling, I open the hatch in the top of the elevator and prepare to fly.

[sareyen]

A Machine Without Feelings: A Jane Eyre AU (Part 4/11)

Read on ao3

Chapter 4

Charles did not see Erik the morning after the incident with the fire, but he hadn’t truly expected to. Things were left at a strange point last night, but not at an impasse. Charles had clearly pushed Erik back, and Charles would not put it past the other man to expand the chasm Charles had created between them.

Charles had not slept any more that night, and spent the rest of the morning curled up in his bed with the echo of the deranged laugh ringing in his mind. It was definitely a female voice, and Charles flicked through all of the possibilities.

There was no way it was Moira – Charles knew her voice and her laugh, and there was no way that kind woman could purposefully set someone’s bed on fire with the obvious intent to harm, or even kill. Charles then thought about Angel, who often laughed wildly and without shame or restraint, but ruled her out as well. Angel’s voice did not carry that same tone, one of despair mixed with ecstasy.

Charles then considered Lorna, Peter’s maid. The girl was the same age as Charles, but was not the type to laugh in that manner, more restrained in temperament.

The only woman left to consider was Anna-Marie. It had to be her; Charles never really spoke with her, only saying brief and curt ‘hellos’ when they would occasionally pass each other in the kitchens. Anna-Marie kept to herself, and she seemed to have an unusual temperament – she was the only option.

Charles felt like he had to talk to Erik about this, even if it would only be extremely awkward, or even hurtful. Charles was ready to risk Erik’s withering gaze, the one he lavished upon so many other people, but for some reason never used on Charles.

After pushing him away last night, Charles expected to join the throng of people that Erik glared at, and the thought hurt more than Charles wanted it to.

Charles and Moira sat in her tea room, Charles swirling his spoon around a hearty stew that sat in a dainty china bowl in front of him. He pushed the cubed mutton to one side, and the carrots to another. Onions sat in a sad, wilted pile by the southern portion of the bowl.

Moira seemed to notice what he was doing, casting him a concerned gaze.

“Are you alright, Charles? You’ve hardly eaten a thing,” the woman said, stepping closer to press her hand to Charles’s forehead. “You do not feel feverish. Maybe I should call for Dr McCoy to have a look, just in case.”

“I’m alright, Moira,” Charles said, taking the woman by the wrist, squeezing it before pulling it from his forehead. “Just a poor night’s sleep, is all.”

“Yes, well, you weren’t the only one,” Moira said, sighing heavily as she sunk into the chair beside Charles. Charles didn’t even bother pretending to eat his meal, his appetite non-existent after the events of the previous night.

“What are you speaking of, Moira?”

“Well, the master’s rooms caught on fire last night,” Moira said, Charles’s breath stopping.

“What… Did he, did he talk to you about it?” Charles asked, stammering a little as Moira nodded.

“Yes, he said that he had been reading in bed and had fallen asleep. His candle must have caught on his bedding, but thankfully he woke before the fire could spread too much. Burned up his curtains and the posters of his bed, but it was by God’s good graces that no further damage was done.”

Oh.

“That is very good fortune,” Charles said quietly, Moira nodding in agreement. “Where is Mr Lehnsherr now? I’d like to talk to him… to ensure that he is… well.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t bother - you just missed him, Charles,” Moira said, patting the tutor’s arm.

“Missed him? Did he leave?” Charles asked a little too quickly. Moira didn’t seem to notice anything amiss, not picking up on the slight rise in pitch of Charles’s voice, or the way he seemed to be winded by the end of the two short questions.

“Yes, he left early this morning, just after dawn. To the Frost residence, a little ride from here. It was very short notice, but none of us were surprised. In fact, we expected him to have left sooner, he rarely stays for more than a few days to a week at a time, but he has been here for almost three weeks already,” Moira said thoughtfully, Charles swallowing the thick globule of saliva that seemed to lodge itself in his throat.

“Did he say when he would return?” Charles asked, fingers gripping onto the hem of his waistcoat tightly. Moira shook her head, Charles’s heart dropping to his stomach.

“He never really says. It could be a week, or a month, or even a year. Ironfield didn’t see its master for almost six seasons at one time. That was almost two years ago, now,” Moira said, Charles quickly standing up from the table, his chair skittering with a loud clatter behind him. “Charles?”

“I’m sorry,” Charles said, voice pinched. “I may not be feeling well after all.”

“Oh, dear,” Moira said, getting up as well, frowning again. “I will get Alex to call upon Dr McCoy.”

“No, no, there is no need,” Charles said, giving his friend a strained smile. “It is just a lack of sleep. I will nap for a while before my afternoon lessons with Peter. Will you let him know that I’ve given him the morning off?”

“I’m sure he will love you for it,” Moira said, patting Charles’s arm again before leaving the room. Charles swayed on his feet a bit, steadying himself on the back of Moira’s chair, pinching the bridge of his freckled nose tightly as he forced himself to just breathe.

‘Calm your mind, Charles. Calm yourself. This was to be expected, Moira says that this is normal. You shouldn’t expect any more than what has already been given.’

You pushed him away, after all.

 ***

 It was almost two weeks later when Moira burst into the study where Charles was attempting to teach Peter geography, the two of them huddled in front of a large globe. Charles had just begun to go through how the Europeans journeyed across the sea and found Terra Australis, and the sudden crash of a door flying open made him jump.

“Moira? Is something wrong?” Charles asked, Moira’s face puffing out as her words stumbled over one another, hands gesticulating wildly. One of them held an unsealed letter, which had been crumpled up by her tight grip. “Moira, breathe, please. Use your words.”

“Mr Lehnsherr is returning,” Moira said, waving the letter. The blood rushed to Charles’s head, his ears ringing as Moira continued. “He is returning in three days’ time, and it will not be alone. He wishes us to prepare for a party. A party, at Ironfield hall. It is unprecedented!”

“Party? Herr Charles, is part eine Feier?” Peter asked, Charles absently nodding as he processed Moira’s words.

Erik will be back in three days.

Alex, who had been passing by the study at that exact moment, dropped the silverware he was holding and burst through the already open door with wide eyes.

“Did I hear you correctly, Moira?” Alex asked, frozen as Moira nodded. “The master, inviting guests? The apocalypse is upon us, isn’t it?”

“It will be, if we don’t start preparing!” Moira cried out, excitement and stress evident. “We must alert the cooks, and you and Scott must go to the markets at once, there is no way we have enough ingredients in stock for catering. Oh, and then pick up all that silverware, we need to polish everything before they arrive. We need to dust the curtains, change the furniture, and – oh Lord – the hedges haven’t been pruned for months!”

“Herr Charles, Herr Charles, does this mean I will get to dress up?” Peter asked, tugging on the hem of Charles’s coat, drawing Charles’s attention away from a mildly panicked Moira and Alex, to the little boy who was bobbing up and down on the balls of his feet with pent up excitement.

Charles swallowed, bending down a little to pat Peter’s head to calm him, nodding slightly.

“Yes, Peter. But we need to finish our lesson first. Then, we can figure out what you will wear when we have guests, alright?”

“Yes!” Peter said, clapping his hands together before spinning the globe, the ball whirling around and around, its speed dizzying.

The rest of the lesson was mostly unproductive, Peter too amped up with the prospect of a party full of unfamiliar faces, food and music, while Charles’s mind spun like the globe Peter kept playing with, spinning around and around, completely lost. Charles tried to picture how he would act when he was in Erik’s presence again, but all of the scenarios made him anxious.

Part of Charles wanted to just give in to the unnatural feelings he had and throw himself into Erik’s embrace. The other, more rational part of him, imagined addressing Erik with a sort of cold indifference, calling him ‘Mr Lehnsherr’ instead of Erik, not even willing to call him the admittedly fond ‘Herr Lehnsherr’.

Both of the scenarios, and all of those in between, left Charles feeling empty, like a machine without feelings.

To stave away his unsavoury thoughts, Charles applied himself to help Moira with party preparations, accompanying Alex and Scott to the market to buy things, scrubbing silverware and helping rearrange the furniture. Charles was glad for Moira, who seemed to never run out of things to occupy Charles’s mind with, the woman almost in a frantic state of distress as ‘Mr Lehnsherr should have given her more than three days notice to prepare for a party since they haven’t had one since the previous Mr Lehnsherr passed!’

Charles was able to help Moira a lot, especially after he cut back Peter’s lessons to mornings only. Charles knew that Peter would not be able to concentrate, so lessons finished at lunch time every day, leaving Peter to go off with Lorna to pick out party outfits, even though Moira said that the party was going to be for adults - not a suitable affair for Mr Lehnsherr’s young ward.

By keeping himself busy, the three days passed swiftly, and on the day of the arrival of Mr Lehnsherr and his guests, Ironfield Hall was soon abuzz with excitement. Charles completely gave up on even attempting morning lessons, Peter’s attentions long gone. The young boy was now on his knees and pressing his face against an upper storey window, trying to sneak a peek at the guests that were beginning to arrive.

Charles meandered his way to situate himself beside Peter, hand pressed against the cool glass. As he looked out, Charles noticed a row of lavish carriages much like the ones Kurt Marko had bought and left to sit unused in Westchester’s garages, pull up to the front door of Ironfield Hall.

Men in expensive suits and women with beautifully curled hair and extravagant dresses stepped out from the carriages, and Peter tugged on Charles’s sleeve, eyes not leaving the new arrivals. Peter’s mouth was open in rapture as he eyed the clearly wealthy group.

“Herr Charles, Herr Charles! Frau MacTaggert told me that Fräulein Frost will be coming. Oh, Herr Charles. Fräulein Frost, Sie ist die schönste,” Peter gushed, Charles looking to Moira for clarification.

“Miss Frost?” Charles asked, Moira letting out a soft ‘ah’ of understanding.

“Miss Emma Frost. It was her family’s neighbouring estate that the master has been residing at for the past two week and change,” Moira explained, Charles trying to control his expression.

“And Miss Frost. Is she… beautiful?” Charles asked, Moira giving him an odd look, making him clear his throat, clarifying further. “Peter said that ‘Sie ist die schönste’. That she is the most beautiful.”

“Oh, yes. She is the belle of the county. She is extremely beautiful, and she is very popular out in society. It is not only her beauty, but her family is terribly rich, so she has a sizeable dowry. It is nothing compared to Mr Lehnsherr’s wealth, but for a woman, it makes her more desirable than she already is with her beauty alone.”

“Oh,” Charles said, turning his head back to the window, squinting. From the last carriage, there was a woman just stepping out now, swathed in all white. She was tall, with a slender and lean body draped in a beautiful stark white dress that almost shimmered like it was speckled with diamonds in the sunlight. Her neck was daintily arched, indents sloping into an ample swell of her pale and smooth breasts. Her blonde hair was tied in a bun, with carefully curled ringlets adorning the sides of her face, in the fashion of the day. A white dove’s feather seemed to be nestled in her hair amongst a pearl hair piece.

It was not only her body and fashion sense that were impeccable, but her face was undeniably ethereal too. Her skin was like porcelain, and her features sharp, like they had been carved by Italian artisans in the smoothest marble. Charles imagined her standing beside Erik, and he bit down on the inside of his cheek, hard.

She is someone that deserves to walk beside Erik.

“Is that her, Moira?” Charles asked, Moira stepping closer to the window to look. “The one wearing all white?”

“Yes, indeed,” Moira said, sighing a little as she eyed Miss Frost’s frock. “As beautiful as always.”

“She must be quite popular,” Charles said, Moira humming.

“Yes, that is a given. However, she is similar to the master in that way. She has yet to accept any man’s proposal, though I dare say that by the end of this trip, we shan’t be able to say that anymore.”

“What do you mean?” Charles asked, turning to Moira with wide eyes, the older woman looking at him with amusement.

“Sometimes I forget that you are still young, Charles. You act so intelligent and mature for your age, but I suppose you are still too young to understand such matters,” Moira laughed, squeezing his shoulder. “It is obvious that Erik invited her with the intent to propose by the end of the party. People have speculated about it for a while, since Miss Frost has shown interest in the master when they were out in society together. Mr Lehnsherr must have finally given in, though it did take him a long time. I wonder why he had a change of heart now.”

Charles swallowed, closing his eyes as his heart cracked in his chest, just a little bit.

You are lucky, Charles. You are young, and you have never felt love. But in turn, you have never been hurt by it.

Erik’s words from all those days ago reverberated in Charles’s mind.

“No, I understand, Moira,” Charles churned out, squeezing a hand around his heart, suffocating it. “I understand completely.”

 ***

 Charles glared at the back of Erik’s head, but the man did not turn to him. Charles was angry, livid even, and his temper was rarely thrown off course. Erik, however, seemed to be the exception to everything, stirring up Charles’s heart and emotions with nothing more than a gaze, or lack thereof.

Charles was mad because Erik had forced him to join the party the grand hall. The room looked different than how it usually appeared; Charles had helped Alex drag in more tables and chairs, Moira filling usually-empty pots with vibrant flowers. Scott had wheeled in a piano forte into the corner, which was now being played by a young lady that was not Miss Frost – Miss Irene Adler, if Peter’s excited whispers in his ear were to be trusted.

Charles knew the instant he walked in that he did not belong there, amongst this sort of people. Charles had been born into wealth and status, yes, but he had not been raised in it. Charles did not fit in with his threadbare coat and overly washed neck tie, his boots scuffed and beginning to split at the seams. Charles stuck out like a sore thumb, and he didn’t know what Erik wanted to achieve by forcing Charles to be here, in a place where whatever self-worth he thought he had was thoroughly being trampled on.

Even though Erik had invited him in – ordered him, more like it – Charles stayed on the fringe of the party. When he had stepped into the room, Erik’s lips curling upwards as he glanced at Charles for a brief moment before turning back to a conversation between Miss Frost and her mother, Lady Hazel Frost.

Lady Frost was a terrifying woman, with a near-constant predatory grin etched into her elegant but aged face, that bore a striking resemblance to her daughter’s. She was decked out in jewels and silks, though she opted for a flowing gown of a rich violet in contrast to her daughter’s white apparel.

Lady Hazel Frost had not hidden her sneer as she noticed Charles enter the room, blue eyes flicking him up and down, before moving on to Peter, who was standing at Charles’s side.

“Who is that little creature?” the older Lady Frost jeered, eyeing Peter, who did not pick up on the cold social queue and perked up at being noticed, bouncing on his feet like he always did. Peter preened at the attention, stepping forward towards other party guests, bowing and introducing himself, calling people ‘Frau Adler’ and ‘Herr Frost’. Hazel turned up her nose at Peter, ripping her eyes from him with thinly veiled disgust to address Erik again. “I did not know that you were fond of children, Mr Lehnsherr.”

“I am not,” Erik said, looking at Charles, smiling. “There were circumstances, and he was left in my hands. I’d rather not delve into it further.”

“Understandable. It is unfortunate, though. Send the creature to a good English boarding school, I’d say. That would take him out of your hands, dear Lehnsherr,” Lady Frost said. Emma laughed at her mother’s words, a bell-like chime that was as cold as the ice-like diamonds dripping from her blemish-less skin.

“Mother, I see that Lehnsherr has hired a tutor of sorts,” Emma said, glancing at Charles, ghost of a smirk on her face, eyes just as appraising as her mother’s, the women seemingly cut from the same cloth.

“Yes, I noticed him,” Hazel said, not bothering to look at Charles again. “Just look at him, so gloomy in those depressing rags. He is young, and his face is not completely torturous, at least. Nonetheless, tutors are no better than governesses, and you know my thoughts on governesses. They’ll eat you out of house and home, and before you know it, they’re making eyes with the butler – or, God forbid, the master of the house.”

Emma giggled at her mother’s words, leaning in closer to Erik, to whisper exactly what her mother thought about governesses and tutors into Erik’s ear. Charles had to look away from Erik, jaw locked, not wanting to see Erik’s expression as he leaned in towards his wife-to-be.

The large room suddenly began to feel extremely claustrophobic, and Charles had to get out, out, out.

Charles did not look at any one as he stalked towards the door from whence he came, hand tugging at his high collar to try and make it easier for him to breathe.

“Charles.”

Oh, God.

Charles turned at the voice as he reached the stairs, gripping onto the top most banister tightly. The tutor took great pains to keep his face neutral, breathing in and out evenly. Erik stared back at him, gauging Charles’s reaction, pale eyes narrowed slightly.

“What is it?” Charles asked, voice blunt. Erik did not flinch, but his eyes did twitch slightly.

“You rushed out,” Erik said simply, and Charles fought back the urge to scoff. “You look depressed, Charles.”

“I am not depressed!” Charles denied, face scrunching up as his grip on the staircase tightened.

“You are crying, Charles. Obviously depressed. Tell me, why are you upset?”

“I am not crying-” Charles started immediately, Erik just look at him relentlessly. Charles felt his eyes become hot, vision blurring. Shit, shit, shit.

“I am not crying,” Charles said again, as if repeating the words would manifest them into reality. It did not work, and Charles was forced to wipe away a stray tear that collected at the base of his eye, about to slip down his cheek. Charles sniffled, swallowing and blinking rapidly. “I am not crying. I am simply tired.”

“Simply tired,” Erik said, not believing Charles in the slightest, which made Charles’s chest fill with anger once again, tears building for newfound reasons.

“Yes, Erik. I am tired. Moira has worked me to the bone in preparation for this gathering for days, so yes, I am tired,” Charles snapped, letting out a shuddering breath. “I wish to retire, my friend.”

Erik’s face suddenly grew dark at Charles’s use of the strangely distant 'my friend', his mouth turning down in a blatantly displeased frown.

“I cannot stop you, Charles,” Erik eventually said, after a silent stand-off. “You may retire, but do know that I expect you to be in the drawing room every night after supper. Every night.”

“As you wish, my friend,” Charles responded petulantly, using the title for no other reason than to see the displeased expression on Erik’s face grow. If Erik was going out of his way to torment Charles like this, there was no reason for him to refrain from doing the same.

“Good night, then, Charles,” Erik said, voice thin.

“Good night,” Charles responded, whirling on his heel and quickly walking down, taking two stairs at a time.

 ***

 The next night, Charles did as Erik asked, though he planted himself stubbornly behind a screen in the room and buried his nose in one of the books from Erik’s library. Charles ignored the raucous laughter emanating from the Frost family, Emma latching onto Erik’s arm every time someone said something that was apparently hilarious.

Yes, Charles ignored the whole lot of them, but every now and then he may have caught the sight of Erik talking to Miss Frost, occasionally breaking his gaze with her to shoot Charles a heated look, which only made Charles flush and turn back to John Gould’s 'The Birds of Australia'.

On the second day, a new guest had arrived at Ironfield Hall; a Mr Victor Creed, from somewhere in the Americas. The man was of a stocky build, far broader than Erik and just as tall. His face was covered by a coarse-looking beard, and his hair was shortly cropped, which only emphasised the heavy-set build of his face.

When Alex had told Erik about his new guest, Erik’s face had immediately clammed up, brow crinkling tightly. Erik had muttered something to Alex, who nodded and the two left the party for a brief period of time, before re-entering with Creed in tow.

Creed meshed well with the other partygoers, regaling them of tales about the Americas. The Frosts and the Adlers hung around him, trying to mimic his accent, and him theirs, sending everyone into choirs of laughter.

Erik seemed to stay away from Creed, and hence away from the congregation around him. Instead, Erik hung by the fire with a glass of wine swirling in his hand, staring at Charles, as if his stare would make Charles look up at him. Charles adamantly tried not to, but gave in, if only a few times. Every time, Erik seemed to smile at him in that way that showed too many teeth – one of his real smiles, Charles had discovered.

Charles lasted the entire night in that room the second time, until the party dispersed back to their bed chambers for the night. Charles did not look up when Erik walked past with Emma hanging from his arm, ensuring to comment that he would escort lady to her chambers, Emma giggling and calling him a true gentleman. Charles swallowed back the bitterness, not enjoying the taste at all.

Charles retired to his own chambers a short while after everyone else, not wanting to catch any stragglers loitering in the halls. When Charles returned to his room, he splashed some cool water across his face, before flopping onto his bed face down.

Charles groaned and buried his head into his pillow, banging it against the soft bundle of feathers and fabric, as if it would shake out the images of Erik and Emma, the two of them looking like a picture, perfect in every way.

Charles lay there for a short while, until the constraints of his clothing became stifling. Charles had just pulled off his coat and unfastened his waistcoat when there was a loud, rattling scream, Charles startling mid-action. His initial thought was Anna-Marie, but after pushing away the initial shock, Charles realised that the scream was most definitely masculine.

Lighting a candle, Charles quickly stepped outside. Other people had heard the chilling sound as well, and had already begun gathering in the hallway. Everyone stood, confused and shocked in their nightwear; the women had small strips cloth tied in their hair to fix their curls, and men looked groggy, beards and hair in disarray.

Hazel Frost regarded Charles with disgust while pulling her elaborate sleep coat around her, and he pushed himself into the wall, as if to blend with it. Hazel only took her eyes off Charles when Erik entered from an archway, hand behind his back, out of view from everyone except for Charles, who was so tightly pressed against the far wall that he could see Erik’s back.

Erik’s hand was dripping with blood, and Charles’s eyes widened. Blood dripped steadily from Erik’s fisted hand and onto the wooden floor behind him, so Charles quickly untied his necktie and dropped it to the ground, pretending to pick it up while furiously wiping up the blood. Erik seemed to notice Charles’s actions, turning his head back and leaning in carefully.

“Wait for me in your chambers after,” Erik said, voice low. Charles nodded, picking up his bloodied neck tie from the ground, and stepping back again.

“Lehnsherr!” Emma called out when she spotted her soon-to-be-fiancé. “What was that ghastly noise?”

“It was nothing to be concerned about,” Erik said slowly, Emma giving him an apprehensive look, staring at his forehead like she was trying to draw out the truth, not believing him completely. “This is an old house, and it is prone to making noises from time to time. Ironfield has many tales about ghosts that lurk its halls. Perhaps, after a good night’s sleep, I could tell you all about them over breakfast.”

“Ghosts, how exciting,” Emma laughed, others joining in, curious. Erik just nodded, smiling that fake-smile he sometimes wore, before extending his uninjured arm out to Emma.

“Let me escort you back to your chambers, Miss Frost,” Erik said, smiling a little. “I have been told that my face scares off many people, even ghosts.”

“Oh, you need not protect me from the ghosts, Lehnsherr. I am stronger than I look,” Emma said, though she looped her arm through Erik’s anyway. “And, your face does not incite fear in all people.”

Charles watched as people began wandering back into their rooms, returning to his after wiping up a few more drops of Erik’s blood, heart hammering. He returned to his room and paced around, the candle dropping about a centimetre in height before there were two solid raps on his door.

Opening it, Charles looked up at Erik, who returned the look with a serious gaze.

“Take your candle and follow me,” Erik said, Charles doing as he was asked and following closely at Erik’s back; even though he knew that Erik’s tale about the ghosts of Ironfield were a ploy, the idea still unnerved him, and he walked closer to Erik than he usually would.

It was when they drew closer to the deserted west wing that Erik reached behind him with his good hand to grasp Charles’s. Charles twitched, but Erik’s grip only tightened, not letting Charles go.

They were silent as they continued walking, only stopping briefly for Erik to unlock a door leading to a spiralling stone stairwell. They ascended, Erik walking at a brisk pace with his long legs, leaving Charles to stumble after him. Charles tripped a little, the action causing him to tug on Erik’s arm. The older man turned back, face apologetic.

“Are you alright, Charles?” Erik whispered, Charles nodding, heart in his throat. “Do you faint at the sight of blood?”

Charles looked at Erik’s hand, remembering the bloodied neck tie he left in his room, and shook his head. Erik sighed, relieved, and squeezed Charles’s hand.

“Are you afraid?” Erik asked, as they neared the top of the stairs. Erik tugged Charles towards him by their joined hands, Charles having to part his legs slightly to rest his feet besides Erik’s on the same step with how close Erik held him.

The staircase was narrow, and Erik’s large frame crowded Charles against a wall.

“Charles, are you afraid?” Erik asked again, face so close to Charles’s. The younger man could see the red flicker of the candle in the reflection of Erik’s eyes, which looked into his without wavering.

“No,” Charles breathed out, Erik closing his eyes briefly, as if relishing their close proximity, before pushing back and unlocking the second door.

The two of them stepped through the door’s threshold, and Charles audibly gasped when he saw Victor Creed lying on a tattered chaise lounge, shirt torn open and revealing a profusely bleeding red gash across his chest.

Erik pulled Charles closer, and the tutor’s eyes widened to saucers when he saw the wound more clearly; there were two stippled arches, deep and red, and part of it seemed like the flesh had been gouged out. Or bitten out. It clearly looked like bite marks, and Charles turned to Erik, mouth open in a silent question.

Erik looked apologetic again, rubbing his thumb across the back of Charles’s hand before letting go and bending to one knee beside Creed, leaning closer.

“Creed, I’m going to fetch a doctor and you will be alright. Do not speak about what happened here, under no circumstances,” Erik said, Victor barely responding, his face ashen and sweat beading on his brow.

Getting back up, Erik grasped Charles’s shoulders, before sliding his hands to his neck, then upwards to cup his cheek, the touch too intimate to be comfortable.

“Charles, look after him while I ride to fetch Dr McCoy. I won’t be more than an hour, you know what to do, yes?”

“Y-Yes,” Charles said, looking down at the man, who had begun breathing heavily, murmuring incoherently. “Go, Erik. Go quickly.” And return to me.

Erik nodded, disappearing back down the stairs. Charles sucked in a tight breath, before grabbing some of the cloth laid out on a table beside the chaise, pressing it against Creed’s wound. The man moaned in pain, teeth gnashing, and Charles shushed him with a soothing tone. Charles took another cloth dipped in cold water, dabbing at the man’s sweat-laden brow. Creed writhed, grunting out phrases that made no sense to Charles – ‘she attacked’, ‘I never thought’, ‘that bastard’.

“Calm yourself, my friend, you are alright now,” Charles chanted, not sure if he was speaking to the injured American or to himself. “Calm yourself.”

Time passed, and soon Creed settled down slightly from a combination of exhaustion and Charles’s soothing. There were no clocks in the tower room, and from the window it still appeared dark outside, so Charles had no way to ascertain what time it was; so, he just kept focusing on breathing. In and out, in and out.

Wind swirled around the tower, almost making a whistling noise that Charles shivered at. His candle fluttered every now and then, until a particularly gusty wind rippled through the room, blowing out Charles’s candle completely.

“Shit,” Charles muttered, suddenly thrust into darkness, Victor groaning at the sound. “Sorry, sorry. Calm, you’re alright.”

As Charles spoke, there was a loud banging noise from behind a dangling tapestry in front of Charles, the young man squeaking, hand flying to his heart. Victor groaned, twitching from where he reclined in the chaise. There was another bang, followed by the rattle of metal, before things stilled again.

Charles’s muscles were taut, and he wanted to inspect the disconcerting rattling – or run away from it. But Victor let out a long noise of pain again, Charles ignoring the ominous noises and focusing on the injured man in front of him, continuing to put pressure on the wound while dabbing at his forehead.

After what seemed like an eternity, Erik finally returned, followed by a meek and lanky-looking man with large glasses and dark hair carrying a stiff leather bag. The young man’s eyes widened, much like how Charles imagined his had when he first laid eyes on Victor, before taking Charles’s position on the floor beside the patient.

The doctor – Hank McCoy – peeled back the cloth Charles had pressed against the wound, sucking in a tight breath.

“These are… bite marks?” Dr McCoy asked, looking up at Erik, who returned the look with a glare.

“I brought you here to fix him, not ask questions,” Erik snapped, McCoy blanching and nodding.

“I can only do so much here, he will need stitches and medication. I’ll stem the bleeding for now, but we need to get him to my clinic,” McCoy said, Erik grunting but conceding. McCoy worked quickly, bandaging the wound before letting Erik hoist the man over his shoulders. The four of them hobbled down the stairs to where Scott was waiting with a carriage, the boy looking half asleep but startling to attention when he spotted Erik dragging a seemingly half-dead Creed by the arm.

McCoy climbed into the carriage first, helping Erik pull Creed onto one of the sets. On the walk down, Creed had regained some more of his consciousness with the help of McCoy’s smelling salts, and after he was loaded up into the carriage, he leaned out the window to tightly grasp the front of Erik’s crinkled shirt.

“Look after her,” Creed gritted out, Erik’s mouth pulling into a grimace, pushing the man’s hand off him. “Lehnsherr! Remember your promise, you bastard! You made a promise!”

“Yes, how could I forget. It haunts me every waking moment of every fucking day,” Erik hissed, pushing the injured man harshly further into the carriage, banging his fist on the carriage twice to signal Scott to go. Scott clicked his tongue, the dual dark-coat horses lurching forward.

Erik and Charles watched the carriage pull away, and Erik’s shoulders immediately loosened once it was out of sight.

“Walk with me, Charles,” Erik said, glancing at the young man standing just behind him, offering a hand. Charles did not take it, but took a step forward, Erik huffing.

The two men walked around the side of Ironfield’s front patio, to the stairs of the garden, secluded from view. Day had broken the moment they hauled Creed down, and Charles was exhausted – Erik, too, looked worse for wear - and it was then that Charles remember that Erik’s hand was also injured.

“Erik, your hand,” Charles said, breaking the thick silence between them.

“It is nothing,” Erik replied brusquely, Charles shaking his head, reaching for Erik’s injured hand gently. Charles pulled it to him, palm up, eyeing the wound across it. It was truly not that large, blood no longer flowing but crusted over a coin-sized nick. Charles ran his fingers around the skin surrounding the wound, Erik’s good hand moving to rest over Charles’s, covering it completely.

“Such small hands, yet they did not tremble,” Erik voiced, turning Charles’s palm over, tracing his fingers across his love line.

“I only did as I must,” Charles said, Erik chuckling.

“Yes. Only you would have a hand in saving two lives, and pass it off as nothing,” Erik said, turning Charles’s hand over in his again, as if marvelling at it.

Charles swallowed, not quite able to pull his hand away from Erik’s, not when it held him like this.

“This spring, I came home. Heart sore, and soul withered,” Erik said, bending Charles’s wrist so he could lace his fingers through Charles’s. “Then I met a gentle stranger, with whom, I feel like I could live again. But, there are obstacles that I must overleap to obtain them. Tell me, Charles. Am I naïve in thinking that the obstacles are not too high? That I could leap over them and make it to the other side?”

Charles immediately thought of Emma Frost, and that was what gave Charles the strength to tear his hand away from Erik’s, stepping back. Charles cradled his hand against his chest, eyeing Erik wearily.

“There are no obstacles,” Charles said bitterly, knowing that Emma was a perfect match for Erik. ‘Unlike me, who is unnatural and unworthy.’

“Not in the conventional sense,” Erik pushed, Charles laughing emptily.

“If you cherish an affection, my friend, then fortune alone cannot impede you,” Charles replied, and it was Erik’s turn to churn out a laugh, looking at Charles with a heated look.

“Another naïve sentiment, Charles,” Erik said, slapping the stone of the stair’s railing thoughtfully. “It appears that your naivety is rubbing off on me.”

With that, Erik softly told Charles to get some rest, and that he did not expect Charles to join them today, since he needed to recuperate after the night’s events. Charles returned to his rooms, tired to the bone, but unable to sleep, because even in his dreams, Erik did not leave him in peace.

Next chapter (5/11) →

[lunaraen]

"Am I proud of what I did? No. Would I do it again? Absolutely." With Jessie and Paladin Danse?

Danse is willingto admit that not all of his choices have been exactly stellar.

He’s mademistakes in his time, knows the bitter, stinging taste they always leave, knowsit’s worse when people he cares about and his emotions get involved.

(Especiallyconsidering the various reasons why heated and truly human emotions aren’t soeasy for him to deal with.)

And trustingJessie?

That’s not oneof them. At least, if it’s a mistake, it’s the best one he’s made in years.

But letting herget away with what she gets away with?

Well, she’s herown person. Jessie’s allowed to make her own choices as a reasonable adult,even if most times she doesn’t truly seem like either, and even if she wasn’t,that would hardly stop her.

Jessie doesn’tneed or care for permission, and given her various ranks in almost all thefactions of their corner of the wasteland, there’s hardly need.

But maybe Danseshould try to pay her back for all she’s done for him and be a betterinfluence, try and actually succeed to keep her from getting herself killed asquickly as she’s been trying. She hasn’t died yet, by some number of miracles,but Danse isn’t sure that it isn’t at least in part also due to Jessiesurviving out of sheer spite.

Knowing this,knowing her, he’s still not as prepared as he should be, when he opens the doorto the room Jessie’s had claimed for herself since they began working on theabandoned lumber mill and finds her at her desk.

That doesn’tsound as bad as it is.

It’s not so muchthat she’s at her desk so much as it is that she seems utterly relaxed, feetpropped up on the desk where the papers have been pushed aside while her chairtips back slightly, that gets to him. If her hat weren’t tipped and he didn’tsee the eyes intently focused on him, he’d think she was asleep.

He does see thewatchful eye, though, so he stops on the other side of her desk, arms set athis sides as he gives her a short nod.

“Jessie.”

She tips her hatup a bit more as both eyes watch him, smiling back.

“Irecognize that look. Danse…” Jessie crosses her arms behind her head,leaning back slightly more in her chair as her boots continue to rest on the desk.“I know, I know. Am I proud of what I did? No. Would I do it again?Absolutely.”

It’s a losingbattle.

He knows it, sheknows it, everyone who’s ever met Jessie knows it.

But it’s hislong-suffering duty to at least try.

“…I’mbeginning to think these regular expeditions have been doing something to yourstability.” It’s not the right thing to say, but he has no idea how totake it back without stumbling over his words or giving her an even biggeropening.

The smiledoesn’t fall, strengthening if anything as Jessie raises an eyebrow.

“Stability.”There’s a lazy drawl to her voice as she repeats the word, and they both knowtoo well how poorly the word describes anything to do with her.

Still, nottwelve hours ago Danse had to trudge back to the settlement with Jessie at hisside in the ghoul filled dark of night after an already too-long evening, hadto deal with his power armor nearly malfunctioning and almost keeping himtrapped inside and from being able to sleep, and while it was infinitely betterthan being alone with his thoughts, he has the right to say something about it.

“Particularlyin regards to your mental state.”

“You don’tsay.” Jessie seems to somehow relax even more, shoulders slumping as shechuckles. “Don’t tell me this was your first clue?”

“No, thatwould be the occasional, casual acts of cannibalism. And general disregard foryour own life.” The two tend to go together more often than he’scomfortable with, and he’s already fairly uncomfortable with the cannibalism asit is. The only good thing that’s come from it, as far as Danse can gather, isthat the eerie ability to sense other cannibals has saved them from dealingwith the likewise eerily pleasant cannibal caravans or deranged roamingtrappers.

It had alsoallowed them to deal with the cannibal who had been lurking about just beyondthe hedges of the mill when they first began fixing it up as a settlement.

(He hadn’tparticularly cared much for his own life either, as evidenced by the fact thathe threatened to eat Jessie and tried to attack her while Danse and Jessie’sdeathclaw, Cupcake, were right beside her. The fact that Danse himself stillisn’t sure which of the two are more protective of Jessie only highlights howstupid a move it was, but he’s getting off track and Jessie’s grinning againand why is she grinning she could’ve died.)

“Is thatall?”

Danse breathesin, counts to three, resists the urge to snap or, worse, start venting, andexhales sharply through his nose as he pinches its bridge.

“Iunderstand that it’s not the first time you’ve gotten yourself into dangeroussituations.” Deciding to stick with him and allow him to hide on theIsland despite the trouble it caused, and still causes, with the Brotherhood ofSteel is more than enough proof of that and only one example, as well as oneDanse would rather not mull over until he has time to get existential andJessie’s busy with Valentine again. “Even so, most wouldn’t dare get closeto a cult of rampant fanatics like the Children of Atom, never mind want tobecome the center of attention at one of their ‘celebrations’ and then riskradiation poisoning.”

Especiallythanks to the issues caused by the fog condensers that allowed them to evenmake Echo Lake Lumber into a settlement in the first place.

(Danse stops himselfshort of letting it sound like an accusation, fingers twitching as he tilts hishead back slightly. It’s hard, at times, to not be affected by the tensionsbetween the people of Far Harbor or let his judgements affect his interactionswith them.

Jessie knowswhat she’s doing, most the time, as dangerous and downright impossible astrying to create some form of peace seems, and he respects that.

He just wishesshe would stop trying to get herself killed. He’s lost enough people toradiation, and more than that to the creatures already lost to it. Saying thatanyone’s still sane on a place like Far Harbor is a tough call, made all theworse by how everyone seems to be aware of and acknowledge their owninstabilities.)

Jessie gives ashort shrug, shoulders not moving as much as her hands do, no longer behind herhead as she holds them up.

“What can Isay? They know I can talk.” Danse ignores the jab at his own mostly keptsilence around the cultists. Jessie seems less inclined to brush it off oroverlook the hypocrisy he’s been willingly trying, and up until now largelysucceeding, to forget. “And you can’t act like I was the only one getting into things. I’d say you got everyone’s attention last night.”

Aforementionedkept silence isn’t as effective as it could be when it’s broken for the sake ofsinging.

For the record,he’d gotten more than just some light clapping, and Jessie had been the one tostart even if she didn’t expect him to join in, but remembering that doesn’t dohim much good in fighting off his creeping embarrassment or the lingeringrelief that none of it had been taken as disrespectful in some way.

So he plays intothe other trap and stoops to her level.

“And I’dsay you drank too much at the festivities.” He still hasn’t ruled out thepossibility that she somehow got her hands on too much Wastelander before theyever got close to the Nucleus, but he’s more than certain that she got plentywhile they were there.

He appreciatesso much of her, really he does, and there is so much about her that will nevercease to amaze him, but she can also be extremely frustrating and aggravatingwith how carefree she manages to act even when she risked dying again nottwelve hours ago. Danse is hardly surprised he has to fight the urge to dosomething juvenile that would at least get some sort of reaction out of her,like steal her hat.

Actually…

He’s alreadystooping to her level. Besides that, Jessie’s always been encouraging him to dosillier, more ‘human’, things, to 'enjoy life and living’ instead of playing itsafe for ensured survival, and he’s willing to say the encouragements have onlyincreased since they’ve come to Far Harbor.

So he takes apage out of her book and does what he does.

Whatever retortJessie had about her drinking habits, or maybe his, becomes a squawk as shestraightens up, swiping at him and barely missing the chance to snatch her hatback, nearly falling out of her chair as she does.

Danse stops,already turning to look at Jessie as the chair settles again, because it’s justa hat and he doesn’t care as much about his continued existence as he should,but Jessie doesn’t seem bothered, grinning as she straightens up and brushesback the bangs that fell into her face.

This? This partfeels like a mistake.

“Oh, you’reon.”

And that grinonly gets wider as she gets to her feet, hands falling on her hips. This justhappens to be when survival instincts finally kick back in for Danse as herealizes he’s still holding onto her hat and now has her full attention, if hedidn’t already, and he turns and bolts through the door just as she lunges forhim. There are times when he’s reminded of how grateful he is for the benefitsof power armor, and this is one of them.

There’s a wholelot more running after that.

(And frankly,he’s beginning to think being around the Children of Atom may be safer thanleaving Jessie to her own devices. She has her ways of keeping thingsinteresting.)