#this is just the first part of the comp. I have enough asks for another one. maybe another two. we'll see

[thewertsearch]

Let's kick things off with a mega-giga ask compilation!

I've spent the last couple of days working through the backlog, and I've been able to answer some quite old asks that were spoilers at the time they were sent.

@kintatsu asked: So, I was rereading your blog, and got to the post where you determine that John's 13th birthday was a Monday, and complain on his behalf that he couldn't really relax due to having the whole schoolweek ahead of him. Well, I checked, and the previous day was the first Sunday after the first full moon after the equinox, i.e. Easter Sunday. So it might have been a holiday week.

John entered the Medium shortly after Easter Sunday, and he did so by biting into an apple. Forget about the god tiers – his most powerful transformation is clearly Catholic Beast Mode.

Anonymous asked: The thing about knowing your Aspect, I think, is that it's the Aspect you most GET. I GET Space and Light, I understand them completely, they are suffused in my bones and my blood, they are writ large upon my brain and every base in my DNA. What aspect do you just GET?

To be honest, I don’t think I know enough about any Aspect to ‘get’ it.

If I had to choose, then I'd probably feel the most natural affinity for Life and/or Doom – and if was forced to pick one, I’d say I'm very slightly more drawn to Life, just based on vibes.

@mhafanlol2000 asked: I think the horrorterror’s plan (or the closest thing we can comprehend) is CHAOS-by which I mean LIFE. Skaia is order. If it can want, then it wants its players to follow the script it has written-the Alpha. It wants propagation, the snake to eat it’s own tail, blah blah blah. That is order. That is perfect servitude. That is NOT life. The gods, meanwhile, want chaos. It wants its servants to live. It does not tell people to do anything. It simply gives them the facts, and says “here is what you should do. You can not, you can do whatever the hell.” It wants romance, conflict, CHAOS. that is life.

And if this theory is accurate to the canon Life aspect, then I feel justified in my affinity for it. It falls fairly closely in line with my own philosophy.

@necrowyrm asked: When searching your blog I always type "thew" before Tumblr autocompletes your URL. That has become who you are to me.. Thew, Glorious Liveblogger, navigating the treacherous seas of Homestuck

Sally ‘Thew’ Ertsearch, reporting in. 🫡

Anonymous asked: there's actually another arthurian joke to do with dave's land/quest. have another look at the disc platform that bro stabbed. how would you describe the shape of that turntable?

Ayy, Dave's a Knight of the Round Turntable! Honestly, that'd be a pretty great name for his theme song.

@caliquill asked: kanaya vs rose would be absolutely hilarious but. kanaya IS the original "I Can Fix Her" girl for a reason.

Anonymous asked: the only real requirement for a name suggestion to be picked was that the firstname was 4 letters. but by really cool coincidence strider and lalonde are 7 letters, and egbert and harley are 6, and if you add those together its 4/13! similarly, both the trolls names were required to be 6 letters (i think hussie mixed and matched them actually, some of the firstnames were suggested as surnames and vice versa) so theres a similar case to be made for 6/12. but just doubling the same number i think holds less water than adding together two different numbers

Number symbolism is just very flexible in general. All Hussie really had to do was introduce a few 'important' numbers, and the fandom could start finding them everywhere!

Anonymous asked: This may be the wrong place to ask, but have you deleted your post of analyzing the Let the Squiddles Sleep song? I can't seem to find it anywhere.

Here it is. Hopefully you're able to see it now!

Anonymous asked: Will the Mega-Ask-Compilation and Liveblog Recap also happen? ~LOSS (19/2/23)

The former is currently taking place. The latter was planned, but after skimming my blog for a bit, I realized I didn't have as much to say about it as I thought I did. Plus, it's been ages, so I'm really excited to look at some new pages. We can leave the old ones for later - I'll probably do some sort of blog retrospective eventually.

Anonymous asked: i figure the trolls' battlefield went through a full set of dnd dice/platonic solids, plus maybe some other notable johnson solids like a truncated icosahedron (aka a soccer ball or buckminsterfullerene), before becoming a sphere. maybe the outer ring went through stages like simple torus, mobius strip, borromean rings or other fun knots, before becoming a mobius net. (not really sure what a mobius net is, mathematically, but that's apparently what the thing around the final form of the kid's battlefield is called.) or maybe something weird happens with that many prototypings, and the battlefield turns into a tesseract or a klein bottle or a menger sponge or a mandelbulb.

If you so much as look at the Battlefield created by the Gigasession, your brain will leak out of your ears.

@manorinthewoods asked: <3Dave, >3>John, >3oJade, <>Rose (by process of elimination) ~LOSS (5/6/23)

I don’t think either of the girls have worn a playing card symbol. The leaf on Jade’s Wardrobifier does kind of look like a spade, but John’s already got that quadrant on lockdown.

Anonymous asked: Reading stuff about skaia on this blog reminded me of madoka, and made me consider that skaia might be like kyube and the other incubators and sburb is skaias way of keeping the unerverse from decaying

Reading this ask makes me realize that Rose is a near-perfect mark for Kyubey.

There’s only one way to save your session, Seer. Form a contract with me, and become a magical girl.

Anonymous asked: man. i dont know what i expected to happen when you found it. but for The Baby Is You to be liveblogged in less than 20 words during a post was not the way i expected it to go

I know it’s not technically part of Homestuck canon, but it really feels like Homestuck canon to me - at least to the same degree as Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff, and I liveblogged that.

Anonymous asked: begging (lightheartedly) for you to add posts like LOLCAT and "this guy's an orb" to one of the liveblog tags. they're pretty funny, and it's nice to see off-the-cuff reactions like that, haha. imo it'd be a shame for new readers to miss those kind of posts

Done! I sometimes forget to tag posts like that, because I usually just fire them off and forget about ‘em.

@captorations asked: “Give me a set of rules, and I'll analyze the hell out them, every time.” hello fellow doom player. hope you like the color green

Based on ~ATH’s association with curses, as well as Sollux’s programming hobby, I think there’s a decent chance that Doom relates to coding in some way.

Coding is all about rules, so perhaps Doom, is, in fact, the aspect of rules and logic. I'm not sure why such an aspect would be named 'doom', but it's been obvious for a while that these aspect names aren't always literal.

Anonymous asked: I’d just like to clarify some terminology because it seems relevant, but Aradia isn’t a red blood, she’s a rust blood

[The blood colors all have canon names: Aradia = rust blood Tavros = bronze blood Sollux = gold blood Nepeta = olive blood Kanaya = jade blood Terezi = teal blood Vriska = blue blood (I like cerulean better tho) Equius = indigo blood Gamzee = purple blood Eridan = violet blood Feferi = fuchsia blood and Karkat has no official blood name, but people usually call him mutant blood or candy-red blood - C ]

Oh, there are official names for each color? That’s going to be helpful to disambiguate each blood caste, especially when we really start digging into troll culture and biology.

Anonymous asked: I do believe the top-left ship on the wall - no, Karkat doesn't have red eyes. […] It's probably Vrisrezi, yes, but it could also be Vriskat.

Yeah, I’m still not sure who this ship is supposed to represent.

They have Terezi’s eyes, but the hair and symbol look like Karkat’s. Plus, Nepeta hates this ship, which would make sense if it’s between her crush and someone other than her.

Honestly, my best guess is that it was meant to be Karkat, and the red eyes were just a mistake on Hussie’s part.

Anonymous asked: something I never thought about… is the blue blood sourced from equius or did he get a stock.

Aradia has real blue indigo blood in her veins, and it almost certainly belongs to Equius himself. He could have got it from a donor, but I personally doubt there was anyone else he could ask. Equius feels like he'd be an outsider, even to other indigo-bloods.

Anonymous asked: vriska would be a good strider

Vriska Serket raised by Bro Strider would be the most terrifying character imaginable. I don't even want to contemplate what that upbringing would do to her.

Anonymous asked: Any piece of lore hussie writes needs to contend with the fact that hussie is resolutely committed to the bit. Hence all the words on how different trolls are being entirely blasted aside by 'and then they're just grey humans anyway lmao'

That's the price of admission into Homestuck, for better or for worse. Hussie quite clearly enjoys screwing with us, and we have to take everything we see in the comic with a huge pinch of salt.

Anonymous asked: I'll disagree a bit on the phrasing that Eridan forces Feferi to <> him because firstly she doesn't even seem convinced that he would commit genocide and secondly she dropped him super easily once the lusus-feeding is no longer necessary. While understandable, that doesn't suggest to me someone who is obliged by Eridan's aggression to pacify him. I think she has much more agency in this relationship (or lack thereof I suppose) than that.

Feferi definitely had her doubts – but she must have believed that Eridan was dangerous to a certain degree, because that’s the basis of a moirallegiance.

Forced might not be the right word, but she certainly felt some amount of obligation to pacify him. She sure wasn’t in that relationship for the good of her health.

Anonymous asked: So, Vriska has a conversation with Karkat, where he says she seems to have blackrom feelings for Tavros, but that he doesn't think Tavros can even feel blackrom properly. Then she has another conversation with Tavros in which she antagonizes him, and he notices, but just kind of ignores it and doesn't respond emotionally. Then we see her make a huge dramatic redrom gesture and kiss him. She vacillated because he wasn't into her… incel behavior.

Yup. I’ve always held that Tavros never wanted anything to do with Vriska. He doesn't want to love or hate her - what he really wants is to live in a world where she doesn't exist.

Vriska’s refusal to accept this basic fact is one of the main reasons she’s decided to make his life a living hell.

Anonymous asked: I headcanon that troll blood is analog, but the empire culls non-digital colors because they make the troll race seem like a joke or something. Lol

If there were minor variations in blood color, the Empire probably wouldn’t want to acknowledge it, since the stratification of blood classes forms the basis of their society.

We haven’t seen any trolls besides our twelve (apart from Troll Will Smith) so we can’t compare the blood of two members of the same caste - but we can speculate. Human blood color is known to vary depending on its oxygenation level, and I imagine troll blood would reflect its current chemical composition in the same way.

Anonymous asked: Vriska must be seething while Karkat introduces the concept of quadrants to the reader. Imagine this basic and important facet of troll life, and you're just getting schoolfed it. (This message was sent on 20/10/22.)

This was a fun bit of weirdness from early Hivebent, wasn’t it? In retrospect, it's kind of hilarious that Karkat decided to infodump to Vriska about the obscure, niche topic of… dating.

@sanctferum asked: According to his formspring, Hussie's self-insert's classpect is Waste of Space. He also briefly considers Huss of Lips. This is obviously not meant to be taken seriously but. since you asked @absinthe-and-alabaster asked: i believe hussie said somewhere that FedoraFreak's classpect was "Gent of Piss" Anonymous asked: (not sure if this is technically a spoiler but) hussie has jokingly said that fedorafreak's class is a gent.

If Dad Egbert was a Player, then the Gent class would be forced into canonical existence, as the only class that could possibly define him.

Anonymous asked: If Vriska's control does require the victim to on some level want to do the thing, then Sollux's insistence that you do not under any circumstance eat the mind honey could be something he developed in response to that incident. So that if she ever controls him again, she won't be able to make him eat it.

Wow, I never considered that. That’s a very good (and tragic) take, and I think I'm at least locking it in as a headcanon.

Anonymous asked: the official extended zodiac actually has… 288 signs, if im doing my math right? and also probably hadn't yet been conceptualized when that page was posted (the earliest known evidence comes from 2015). i don't know if any thought was put into the number or if it was just pulled from their ass, but there was a running gag in hussie's q&as where he repeatedly threatened us with a 10,000 page intermission focused on 48 squiddles, each representing a sign from the alternian zodiac Anonymous asked: I believe the troll zodiac is one of the few things in HS lore that was truly retconned, there’s actually 288 signs.

Move over, 48 Squiddles. I want to hear about the 288-player clusterfuck that actually gave rise to Alternia!

@manorinthewoods asked: wheee, you got to the first god tiering! this probably opens up a load of new things to say, so, first off: do you think you need to have a full echeladder to god tier? vriska implied so.

She never outright stated that it was required, but I still think it probably is. You generally need to max out your class levels before you can prestige.

@morganwick asked: Believe it or not, you're still in the "Homestuck could have updated RIGHT NOW" phase of the comic's release schedule. The break after the Equius-Aradia kiss aside, the hiati you've heard horror stories about didn't start becoming a thing until the end of Act 5.

[this was around page 3000. still true at this page though - C]

Hussie’s sheer productivity at this stage continues to astound. Could you imagine having that much creative energy?

Maybe Hussie just drinks twenty coffees a day.

Anonymous asked: as someone who is Normal about aradia it's an absolute delight to see someone dig into her character. she's so fascinating to me. (also, fun fact, a while ago tumblr voted her the coolest character in all of homestuck. so there's that)

Aradia’s awesome, and I still don’t think her death is going to stick.

Her ghost was perfectly capable of existing without a body, so there's no reason she can’t survive her new body's destruction.

Anonymous asked: feferi hasn't just woken up, she won't be stuck asleep until 3 hours and 14 minutes into the future! timestamps, yo

Consider this the first mark on my otherwise impeccable record.

Anonymous asked: does cat have a troll/kidsona? itd be interesting to see a full 4 player session in art

[No kidsona, yes trollsona, but even a picture of her would spoil stuff from Act 6 😆 - C]

What she said. It’ll be a while until we can meet KATYAA SCRENR.

@mhafanlol2000 asked: Hey! You can just call me Fan. In all honesty I’m just some guy who likes your liveblog. He/him. I’m gonna list some fan aspects, and I want to see what you think they’d represent, and what abilities they’d give Law Dreams Might Shape Flow

Ooh, more fan aspects! These were a lot of fun to puzzle out the last time.

Law would be the aspect of command, instruction and agreement. An example power would be giving someone a simple rule they're compelled to follow, such as 'don't turn around'.

Dreams would be the aspect of ideas, motivation and symbolism. An example power would be the ability to detect people's idle thoughts - the things they're not even aware they're thinking about.

Might would be the aspect of growth, conflict and evolution. An example power would be the ability to temporarily enhance someone's Aspect abilities, at the cost of making those abilities harder to control.

Shape would be the aspect of form, encapsulation and topology. Shapeshifting is the most obvious application of this aspect, but it's appropriate.

Flow would be the aspect of persistence, momentum and continuity. An example power would be the ability to 'continue' something that has recently stopped. For example, if your PC ran out of power, they'd be able to keep it running for a while. The longer it had been previously running, the longer they could keep it running.

@martinkhall asked: I think Bro might have been raised entirely by shonen anime and My Little Pony Friendship is Magical (the version that existed only in the heads of the worst examples of Bronys). And puppets. Puppets were definitely involved in raising Bro. Anonymous asked: "He has no known relationship with any of the other parents, but was definitely getting foreknowledge of Sburb from somewhere. I’m not even sure I want to know what sort of childhood produces Bro Strider." well. i mean. he grew up with Lil Cal didn't he? the clearly haunted puppet from the sburban dreamscape of derse? it was what he dropped to earth with. i feel like that might explain at least a small part of, like, whatever he had going on.

That’s true. I don’t trust that puppet one bit, and we don’t know what it was up to before the start of the session.

I still suspect that the thing’s still just as alive as it was on Derse, and is just choosing to play dead.

Anonymous asked: I imagine you might've already been told this, but when checking out your FAQ I noticed you described PS/PQ/FS as "not exactly canon" and that you're less interested in liveblogging them because one of your favorite parts is watching all the story come together -- without spoiling anything, I find it pertinent to mention that Pesterquest & Friendsim definitely contribute to the wider "canon" even though dubiously canon themselves. Definitely "part of the story" so to speak.

Yeah, we’ll have to see what comes of this. The problem is that I’m still fuzzy on what ‘dubiously canon’ actually means.

Hopefully that will become more clear as I’m actually liveblogging these tie-in materials – which I am planning on doing. Only time will tell how in-depth the liveblog will actually be, though.

@manorinthewoods asked: In my Sundered opinion, Bec Noir is the best character design in Homestuck. I can't think of any other interesting designs at the moment, other than some which don't beat him and are spoilers anyway (like LE's). Which design do you find most interesting, out of the ones you have? ~LOSS (22/9/23)

I definitely agree that BecJack has one of the best designs in the comic. Plus, Scratch is so weirdly intimidating for a cueball-head.

Anonymous asked: My favorite part of PKWU is just how pointy Gamzee's chin is. It's so… Defined.

iT’s ToO lAtE, ErIdAn! I’vE AlReAdY DePicTeD MySeLf As ThE ChAd, AnD yOu As ThE SoYjAk >:o)

Anonymous asked: i need you to know ag canonically ripped off the sleeves on all of her shirts just to show off the robot arm

I believe it. I don't even need a source; this is just so true to Vriska's character that it's obviously correct.

@bladekindeyewear asked: If you and your ask screener decide that literary/external-media hero title examples without any details or explanation are alright to pass on unless they're too obviously revealing -- and those in and of themselves are usually in heavy dispute by classpect theorists -- I've long been of the opinion that Monkey D. Luffy and Peter Pan are the best possible literary examples of a Page of Breath.

All Pages of Breath must be associated with pirates. No exceptions.

Anonymous asked: unfun fact: the reason rose and jade dont have a lot of pesterlogs with eachother is just because their text colours were kinda eyestrainy together. thats it thats literally the whole reason!! god damn

Hussie: "I don't write Rose/Jade conversations because they’re hard to read."

Also Hussie:

Anonymous asked: you have officially passed my second favourite flash in literally all of homestuck. it's all so well hinted at beforehand but it still comes to punch you in the gut nonetheless Anonymous asked: My favourite thing in this flash is how the name of the flash isn't John: Rise Up, it's JOHN. RISE UP. it's WV sending a plead to John to not die. My second favourite thing is the way the music remixes Doctor (The theme for LoWaS). Anonymous asked: [S] JOHN. RISE UP. is one of my favorite flashes in all of Homestuck. Savior of the Waking World is some of Toby's best work What are your thoughts on our first taste of god tier? @violetsquare111 asked: So glad you liked Savior of the Waking World! One of my favorites in the comic for sure. It takes a lot of ideas from another of Toby's songs, Penumbra Phantasm, a song that… never actually got finished or officially released. There's still various renditions of it though, and the HS collection links a couple of em. (Some people have speculated that Penumbra Phantasm itself was never supposed to be a Homestuck song, and might end up being used in Deltarune, which would be cool as hell) Anonymous asked: It's crazy to think that just about 12 hours ago John was wearing silly disguises to fool his dad and now he's dying to become a god.

God time!

I do think it was the most emotional flash we’ve had, on the strength of the music alone. Savior of the Waking World goes hard as all hell.

Honestly, when WV started calling John a hero, and telling him to rise, it did start to give me some mild chills. Like, yeah – we know John’s a hero, but it feels extra special when it’s coming from someone who’s normally so irreverent.

@elkian asked: Welcome back, hope you're feeling better! I am losing it a bit over you IMMEDIATELY understanding how this coin flip sitch works, something about the narrative and reasoning doesn't match my brain so I've reread it multiple times with total understanding out of grasp and watching you dissect it halfway into the page is truly wild (delighted). Also feel like I understand it a lil better with your analysis.

Thank you! This message was actually sent the last time I returned from a pause, so apologies that I’m one hiatus late in answering it.

@royalvorpal asked: I just reread your entire blog in anticipation. Anonymous asked: This is such a good liveblog, I'm rereading it again and you are really letting me relive the pleasant parts of my middle school years. Reading this blog makes me feel like I'm back on the school bus talking to my friend about the newest update. Thank you for doing this 💛 Anonymous asked: That return page didn't have any sound, so misleading! (I jest, nice to see you're back.) ~DJ @manorinthewoods asked: Hahahah, we are BACK! Lovely, I've missed this liveblog. Most in-depth Homestuck liveblog I'm aware of, looking forward to the restart! ~LOSS (29/3/24) @popcornsalty asked: So excited to see you back!!! :D @chaosorchestrator asked: welcome back! It's good to hear that you're planning on getting back into it! I hope things have been going ok for you in the meantime! @necrowyrm asked: HAPPY 4/13 (OR AS THE ENLIGHTENED KNOW IT: 13/4) AND WELCOME BACK!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you for your votes of confidence, and happy 13/4 to you all!

@rippledphysique asked: Just found this blog and devoured it in a few days. I am selfishly wishing you the best in health and life so that it may return one day… @elkian asked: Hey Sally! Just wanted to wish you well on the recovery, the plague is no joke and I hope you've been able to enjoy some kind improvement. And that 2024 will be kinder, as well. Anonymous asked: wishing you the best in your interim, hopefully you can get a better position where you're not prone to burning out! Anonymous asked: Hope you're doing ok!! I miss seeing your cool liveblog on my dash @kittycatttmattt asked: Poor girl… Got killed by the schedule

Thanks for all the well-wishes, as well. Really, it wasn’t the schedule that was the issue – I just had a lot going on in the background last year. That’s all over now, though!

Anonymous asked: yeah, Homestuck's back babeyyyyy - the site was crashing because of traffic and everything @calamitascalliope asked: You coming back from your break resurrected Homestuck's corpse hggfffdd Anonymous asked: i think this actually is the first time homestuck has updated since you started liveblogging lol - homestuck 2 has been inactive assumed abandoned since december 25th 2020. also happy slightly belated blogiversary btw - you've been delighting us with your journey for two years now! @heliotropopause asked: New Homestuck upd8 just dropped. Apparently. Anonymous asked: what are the odds that you start liveblogging again the same exact day that postcanon comes back from the dead? Anonymous asked: crazy news. so literally just today, october 8th 2023, hussie has officially given complete free license to the newly formed "homestuck independent creative union" (HICU) to create content and monetize it with the homestuck brand however they see fit, with zero creative or financial control from any corporations or even hussie themself, though hussie has said they're available for consultation whenever the HICU wants their input. the HICU seems to be made up of people the community largely has respect for, and the person heading all of this up is James Roach, who is one of the most widely respected individual who has been inolved in homestuck "post canon" (ie. after homestuck itself ended). nobody was expecting any of this, it's completely bonkers. hopes are looking pretty high for homestuck compared to where they were merely a day ago.

Throwback to the day I personally resurrected Homestuck.

Has anything come of this since, actually? I haven’t heard anything about this new comic – although I do scroll in the opposite direction any time I see a reference to Homestuck, so I guess it makes sense that I wouldn’t.

@corporalotherbear asked: What’s your favorite Pokémon?

Contrarian, that I am, I’ll instinctively gravitate to Missingno., if only for the nostalgia factor. Gen 1 glitches were my first real experience with pulling back the curtain of a game’s code, and taking a look at what lies beneath.

My favourite official Pokémon are Porygon-Z, Shedinja, Reuniclus and Metagross!

@heliotropopause asked: Breath/Light is an interesting one, because the ‘Mixolydian’ implies a musical theme, and I thought Time was the musical Aspect. Maybe it’s not that simple. They've all got a musical reference in the name- they are called fraymotifs, after all. Anonymous asked: The Fraymotifs are all musical references actually. E.g. Breath/Time is "Ivories in the Fire", the ivories in question being John's piano keys. A fraymotif is a battle theme. Anonymous asked: ivories in the fire is a musical theme, especifically a Rap term used by Snoop Dogg. So yeah it's connected to Dave Anonymous asked: re: fraymotifs: you pointed out "mixolydian", but that's not the only musical term there. feather "cadence", pneumatic "progression", even fray "motif" itself! hell, the building where you buy these things has an emblem with a crossed sword and music note! so i think this might be less a situation of "need to rethink time aspects association with music" and more "fraymotifs have a musical association also" Anonymous asked: if you look a bit closer at those names, (including the one "fraymotif",) you may realize that "mixolydian" isn't the only musical term referenced…. @galaxa-13 asked: You say the breath/Light Fraymotif implies a musical theme, but they all do! Fraymotif is a portmanteau of "fray" (to fight) and "leitmotif" (repeated musical phrase). Each Fraymotif name implies a musical theme.

Dang it. Yup, they’re all pretty obvious references to music.

I wrote that post the day I was trying to wrangle our family PC into running the Homestuck Collection without lag, so I was a little distracted at the time. Please direct all complaints to Windows XP.

[lionblaze03-2]

holy shit guys. My YouTube is ten years old now. I’ve been posting about these fucking cats for ten goddamn years straight. That’s HALF OF MY ENTIRE LIFE. I’ve spent half of my entire life on that god forsaken platform making videos about fucking kitty cats killing each other. And you know what? I wouldn’t have it any other way 💖happy ten years me you did it. Still out there creating, always will. It’s been a crazy ten years. Here’s to ten more!

[itsjustrosee]

Stranded (Minho x fem!reader (one-shot))

pt. 1, Pt. 2

ok so this is my first time writing any sort of fanfic but I thought I would give it a shot!

Warnings: contains spice and mild cursing

Context: high school au with everyone from the glade plus people from the other mazes like Sonya, Aris, and also Brenda. Minho's on the track team (obviously) and reader is on the debate team. Enemies to lovers

Word count: 4.4k

! I proof read but there might still be spelling mistakes !

You were in your junior year in high school, and you had already gotten a couple months into the school year. It was early October and the weather began to change, becoming slightly colder and colder each day. You could feel a cold gust of wind hit your face as you walked out of your school's double doors. You walked over and lent on one of the pillars your school had built in front of the main entrance as you began to slip your phone out of your pocket.

You only had one new notification from Brenda which read,

'sorry girl I won't be able to pick u up tdy. I got an email a couple of hours ago from my mom saying that I needed to pick her up from work because her car broke down, so I wont be able to work on our social studies project. Sry!'

You honestly didn't bother to read anything after the 'won't be able to pick u up tdy' part. What were you supposed to do now? You didn't have that many other friends you could just text and get them to pick you up. It's not like you were unpopular or didn't have many friends, you actually were quite known around school. It would be relatively hard for someone to hear your name and not know who you were. After all you were head of the student council, captain of the debate team and on your way to being valedictorian next year. So needless to say, you were far from being unpopular. Although you always preferred having a small group of really close friends, though you were friends or friendly, with many other people in your grade.

Unfortunately, you weren't quite close enough with any of your other friends to just text them and ask them for a ride out of the blue.

And almost as if being stranded at school couldn't get any worse, you look at your battery percent and see, oh great, 1 percent. You shut your eyes and pinch the bridge of your nose, taking a second to curse at yourself for forgetting to charge it last night while you were sleeping.

But you calm yourself, thinking that it'll be fine. You'll get a ride home someway or another, right?

Well you thought wrong.

Right when you look back at your phone screen, its black. You stare at your phone, jaw dropped, continuously clicking at the power button, but to no avail the screen stays pitch black, leaving you to stare at your reflection wondering, 'how the actual fuck did I manage to be this unlucky.'

You tuck your phone back into your bag and you realize you really only have one way of getting home. Walking.

Wow this is just so amazing because of course this happens the day you get out at 5:30 because of a debate competition. Meaning you had to wear black heals and tights, paired with a tight pencil skirt that only went up to your mid-thigh, and a black blazer with a white undershirt that revealed more of your chest than you wanted it to.

Majority of the outfit was borrowed from Brenda, and you had changed into it at the end of school. Giving the clothes you were wearing the whole day to her because you didn't want to carry them around. The plan was for her to bring the bag of your clothes with her as she came to pick you up after your debate comp and drive you both back to your place to work on your project, where you would swap the clothes back.

Was it a semi overcomplicated plan? Yes. It definitely was, and you were now cursing at yourself once again because of it.

However, right as you come to terms painstakingly long and difficult journey you're going to have ahead of you, someone behind you speaks up.

"Hey (Y/N). What are you still doing here?" A familiar voice says, sending shivers down your spine. You could recognize that voice anywhere and you didn't have to turn around knowing that the person behind you was Minho. Godamint of course it was him, the dude who had been picking on you since kindergarten, the dude who you hated, and also the dude who got surprisingly hot over the summer. He was by far the last person you wanted to run into after your day was already totally trashed.

You turn around slowly so you can face him and as you do, you see him towering over you. He looks like he'd recently stepped out of the shower with his wet and slightly towel dried hair. Minho was on the track team and you were aware that on Friday's and during most days of the week, he would stay at school late because of practice. And based off of his hair, you could assume that he showered in the locker room before heading home. You gave yourself another moment before responding, as you look at the grey sweatpants he's wearing as they lay low around his hips, and at the black compression shirt he had on which complimented his physic quite well by it's ability of defining his muscles.

God what were you thinking? You couldn't help but think he was hot. Even though he had made it his mission to annoy you ever since he laid his eyes on you.

"My debate competition just ended." You say dryly while snapping back into reality, shaking off what you were thinking of moments before.

He checks his watch before responding, "Oh right. But didn't that end like ten minutes ago?"

"Yeah.. it did." You confess, realizing that you had stayed here sulking for ten minutes when you could've just accepted your fate and given yourself a head start on walking home. And maybe then, you wouldn't have had to run into this guy.

"why are you still here then?" He asked in a confused tone that lacked little to no concern.

You glare at him for a second but before you can give your embarrassing answer, he speaks again.

"Hey I'm just wondering, no need to get all mad. I just thought that you would've had a ride by now, princess." He says with a grin forming on his face while he puts both of hands up as if he's surrendering. He's clearly trying to do anything he can to get some sort of reaction out of you, and he knew that by using his little nickname he'd made for you at the start of the year, he'd get just that.

"Well actually if you could just shut up for a second then I would've been able to answer you." You snapped at him before continuing, your voice much softer now out of embarrassment, "I um, I don't actually have a ride. Both my parents are out of town for the weekend and Brenda bailed on me so I'm probably just going to walk."

"Really? Dressed like that?" He questions with a chuckle while teasing you and gesturing to your outfit. However he can't help but blush when he see's you dressed the way that you are. Most of the time you tend to wear sweatshirts and baggy clothing, but seeing you in clothing that complimented you curves- wow- It didn't fail to catch Minho off guard.

"Well, what other choice do I have?" You say as your words come out slightly more desperate then intended.

"I could give you a ride if you want." Minho responded, and Minho shocked himself just as much as he had shocked you by saying this.

You and Minho I have seen each other a lot this year because you both actually shared a decent amount of classes together. Although everybody knew him as being super athletic and really popular, he was a lot smarter than people, (a.k.a, you), gave him credit for. And even since you both had known each other since forever, the sudden offer was still odd. Considering how hostile you were to each other obviously.

"I'm not sure. I bet I can just walk home."

"Seriously? You'd probably give up walking home in those heels a mile in." He said with a chuckle, slightly mocking you but you choose to ignore it.

You roll your eyes at him, "Fine." you say with a huff while you both begin walking into the parking lot. "where's your car?"

"Who said I'd be driving you home in a car?" He responds as he tries to fish something out from his sweatpants' pocket, and when he finally pulled out what he was looking for, you see him hold up a key.

You look at him confused until you keep walking with him and see that you're headed towards a black motorcycle.

"Oh absolutely not." You say as you immediately stop in your tracks and Minho walks over a couple more steps and unlocks it.

"Come on it's just a motorcycle."

"Dude are you serious. Do you know how many people die on those things yearly?"

"No, how many?" he asks while looking at you with a smirk, already able to sense your bluff.

"I don't know- but probably a lot!" You answered because of course you don't actually knowing how many deaths motorcycles cause, but you thought it was safe to assume that they caused many.

"Thank you for the offer, but I think I should just start walking home now if I want to make it before it gets dark out." you say while walking past Minho and his stupid motorcycle. But Minho grabs your wrist before you can walk away any further. Feeling his skin on yours sends a jolt of electricity through your body. You turn around to face him and he keeps his hand on your wrist but his grip softens.

"Do you even know the forecast for today? It's supposed to start storming around six, and I don't think you want to get caught walking home in the rain right?" After he says that you look up at the sky and see that it's already being filled up by dark and angry clouds that could start raining down on you and Minho at any second, then you look back at his motorcycle.

Minho takes in your silence and speaks again, "Look, if you don't make your decision in the next five seconds then I'm leaving with or without you alright? I really can't be driving while it storms so I'll need to drop you off as soon as I can if I want to be able to make it home too."

"Alright fine." You say as you sigh, clearly defeated.

Minho leads you back to his motorcycle and sits down, his bag slung over his shoulders and onto his chest rather than on his back so that you can sit behind him. You tell him how to get to your house and you mutter a silent prayer as you sit down behind him, hoping he doesn't notice how far your skirt is riding up your thighs.

You aren't quite sure where to place your hands so you opt to cross them at your chest. Minho adjusts himself and turns his head slightly so you can here him better, "You know, you might want to hold onto me while I drive."

"I think I'll be fine." you snap at him.

"Suit yourself then." He shrugs as he faces forwards and presses on the gas, much faster than you expected.

You let out a yelp and immediately you wrap your arms around his waist, pulling yourself closer into his back, and you basically cling on to him as if your life depends on it. You dig the side of your head into his back and shut your eyes.

You can already tell he has a wolfish grin spread across his face as he says, "What did I tell you?"

"Yeah, ok whatever I-I get it I should've listened." you blurt out quickly, not trying very hard to disguise the fear in your voice. Minho slows down as he leaves the parking lot of your school and he realizes that he can feel you trembling.

"Hey, hey, its okay. I'll be more careful alright?" He says in a caring tone while he places one of his hands on your knee.

"Just... please go slow Minho." You reply as you hug onto him even tighter.

"I will princess don't worry. I promise I'll get you home safe." He says while thanking god that you can't see how red he's getting. Something about the way you had said his name altered something in his brain chemistry and he would do anything to hear you say it again. And you on the other hand felt that he was being genuine when he said that he'd keep you safe, and it really did sound like he cared. It only took seconds for your face to get as red as a tomato and though you were glad he couldn't see you, you were praying he couldn't feel how hot your cheek was getting on his back.

Your grip on his stayed just as tight and if not tighter for the remainder of the ride home. Although, during every stop you would loosen your grip slightly and Minho would place his hand down by your knee or lower thigh again, rubbing his thumb in circles on your skin which never failed to give you butterflies in your stomach each time he did so.

The silence between the both of you hadn't been awkward at all, if anything, it was quite comforting. Being in each others presence was enough for the both of you. And if anything, the quietness allowed you to think about Minho and how you felt about him now.

Though you didn't really want to admit it, something about the way he was acting towards you now, made you see a very different side of him, and it gave you a reason to like him. But then again this is Minho your talking about. He could have any girl he wanted, practically the entire female population at your school flocked to him. But you are thinking about this as if you don't have boys coming up to you, trying to talk to you at your locker every day. Or like Gally in particular hasn't been begging for you to tutor him since freshman year.

Regardless of the amount of times boys came up to you, you always rejected them, because you had never really felt that way for anyone. Except right now. Because you could practically feel yourself falling harder and harder for Minho every second.

Little did you know that Minho was thinking the exact same way about you, and though he would rather die than admit it to anyone, he's liked you for the longest time.

Do you guys ever remember getting bullied by a guy back in elementary school, and when you told your parents about it they were just like 'oh its just because he has a crush on you!' well that was Minho. Minho was that little boy tormenting you all those years ago because he had the fattest crush on you and just didn't know how to express it. And he never grew out of that habit either. Sure when you guys grew up he would still pick and tease on you but he'd kept getting bolder and bolder, hoping you'd pick up on it one day.

A sudden drop of water on your heads knocked you and Minho out of your thoughts and snapped you back to reality.

"Shit." Minho mumbled under his breath. You finally peaked for head up a bit and opened your eyes to see that he was driving into your neighborhood but it was too late. The light sprinkles of rain soon turned into a downpour after mere seconds. Minho quickly pulled into your drive way and you unbuttoned your blazer and put it over your head to try and keep you at least a little dry until you reached the front door. You got up from your seat and only made it a couple steps forward towards your house until you realized Minho wasn't following you.

"What are you waiting for? Do you want to stay out in the rain and get drenched?" I asked him.

"You don't want me to leave?" He questioned, a bit of hope surged through him, making him think that maybe you didn't hate him as much as he thought.

"Leave? You can't leave now, do you see how hard it's raining? Never mind that, you said that it was going to storm and I can't let you drive home knowing you could just get struck by lightning or some shit." You explain, trying to make it seem as if you didn't care about him, but you definitely did care and you sucked at not making it obvious.

Minho couldn't even respond, he just stared at you, a grin forming at the edge of his lips.

"Can you- stop looking at me like that! Just come inside before I change my mind." You say, turning away and heading straight to the door because you can already feel your cheeks getting red and you don't need to hear Minho's snarky remarks over it.

Minho wouldn't be lying if he said he was a bit flustered too because he hadn't expected you to say what you just said- I mean, inviting him into your house? Minho was absolutely over the fucking moon.

He dashed into the house and got in right after you did, shutting the door behind him. You set down your bag and began taking off your heels before facing Minho. He also dropped his bag and took off his shoes. He looked at you as you cleared your throat.

"Thank you, for um, driving me. Sorry I got kinda freaked out." you say, the redness in your cheeks this time weren't because you were flustered but rather because you were embarrassed. As you looked down, expecting Minho to make fun of you over the way you clung onto him, he takes your chin in his hand and moves it up slightly so that you're now looking at him.

"There's no need to apologize princess."

you just stared at him, too shocked to move because of the contact he'd made with you. Even though you both could've stayed in that position forever, you moved your head to the side, severing the eye contact you and Minho were making, and making him take his hand from your chin.

Immediately Minho began cursing at himself for being so bold. I mean it was amazing enough that you invited him into your house but he totally just ruined it. He just couldn't wait any longer for you, but he got impatient. At least that's what his overthinking ass assumed.

"Minho, I-" you started. You were taken aback by the action but it's not like you didn't like it. In all the years of teasing he had never been that bold or genuine. You couldn't tell if he was still just messing with you for fun.

"No, that was- look I dunno why I did that. I didn't.." He scoffed while looking away.

"Minho look at me." you said while turning your face to look at him again.

He just silently took his hand away from his face and looked at you.

"What's been up with you this year? It's like, you keep teasing me, but then you call me princess and do things like this- It's just- what's your deal? I can't tell if you still hate me, or if you like me or something." You blurt out, way more intensely then you had expected. You couldn't tell if this was just a whole joke or not, like if he really just found pleasure by getting some sort of reaction out of you. Whether that be you getting flustered, or annoyed at him.

"No I don't- I don't hate you at all (Y/N)." He paused while sighing. "This is going to sound stupid but I've liked you since before I can even remember. I just never knew how to tell you, so I just tried to get more bold, and hope that maybe you would catch on, I guess."

You just stared at him with a dumbfounded look on your face, not quite too sure if you were hearing him correctly. But he seemed so sincere, you really wanted to believe he was telling the truth.

"God okay I never should've said anything. I'm sorry, that was all so stupid. I'll leave right when the rain lets up-" Minho barely finished what he was saying as you leaned in and grabbed his shirt, pulling him into you as your lips merged with his.

After a moment of him not reciprocating you pulled away, "I'm sorry I thought-" But before you could say anything else Minho began kissing you again.

You melted into his touch as he slid his arms around your waist and pulled you into him closer. His grip around you was firm as he held onto you as if you could just slip away if he didn't hold on tight enough. You flung your arms around his neck and deepened the kiss between the both of you. It had started out gentle and soft but it only got more and more desperate and passionate as time went on.

"I like you too." You mumbled against his lips between kisses, and at this Minho only became more and more hungry for you. You allowed his tongue to explore every inch of your mouth, and he grew desperate for your taste.

All while holding the kiss he lifted you up by your hips and you wrapped your legs around his waist as he pushed you into a nearby wall in your house.

He kept one of his arms on your waist while the other slid down your shirt and up your back, his cold fingers traced around your spine which only made you arch your back further into him. A slight moan escaped you which only made Minho tighten around his pants. You could feel him harden between your legs, and considering your skirt was far up your thighs by now, and your tights and panties only provided a thin layer of clothing between the both of you. You could feeling yourself throbbing down there as well.

Minho could tell by the way you were fiddling with the hem of his shirt that you were trying to take it off him. Minho pulled away and removed his hands from you and tossed off his shirt, leaving you to stare at his amazing physic.

I mean come on, the guy looked like he had been carved out of stone.

You both took no time at all to crash your lips onto each others again as your hands began to roam all over his chest. He took both of his hands and placed them on your ass in order to keep you propped up on the wall as he continued to pepper your lips with kisses.

He bit against your bottom lip causing you to moan again, but a phones ringtone of the song 'Eye of the Tiger' interrupted you and Minho from continuing.

He murmured a curse to himself and you giggled as he took his phone out of his pocket and answering the call and putting it on speaker. He used one hand to hold his phone as he kept the other on your ass.

You took this as an opportunity to start kissing down Minho's neck, moving down to his collar bone and sucking on it, making sure it would leave a mark. This caused Minho to make a soft groan but since the call was still connecting, the other person wasn't able to hear it.

"Dude where the fuck are you? You were supposed to come over after your practice to help me with our Latin assignment." The very clearly annoyed boy with a British accent questioned. You could tell it was Newt immediately, I mean, not many people have who go to schools in America have British accents.

"I'm sorry I got kind of caught up with something." Minho huffed out. Clearly trying to hide his moans as you continues to leave a trail of kisses and marks along his chest and neck.

"Holy shit you sound like you've just ran a marathon. Wait are you even at home right now?" He asks, this time much more confused then he was before.

"Uh no- I'm not at home right now."

"Then were the fuck are you?"

"At a- friends house."

"Which friends house?" Newt was interrogating Minho as if they were a married couple and Newt caught Minho coming home at 3am smelling of liquor and another women's perfume.

"I'm at (Y/N)'s house.." He said softly, hoping his friend would maybe keep his cool after he said this.

"Hi Newt!" You chime in after leaving several knew hickeys on Minho's neck.

"Jesus Christ I knew it. You've liked her for years! Good job Minho, you finally had the balls to tell her." You hear Newt laugh along with several other people in the background.

"Godamit Newt who else is with you?" Minho says, his face growing redder every second.

"Oh you know, Thomas, Gally, Fry, Alby." He says while trailing off.

Just then you can hear someone grab Newts phone on the other line, "Just letting you know (Y/N) you could do so much better." He says while everyone else with him chuckles, and you can tell it was Gally who said it.

"Oh shut it Gally. Your just mad because she chose me over you. And maybe this way you'll finally get the hint and stop asking her to tutor your dumbass." Minho snaps at him, his protective and jealous tone turning you on way more then you thought.

After Minho says that you can hear everyone on the other line burst out laughing, and even you let out a bit of a laugh afterwards as well.

You can hear Newt take back the phone and say, "Alright we'll leave you to it." as he hangs up the phone.

You look back at Minho as he puts his phone away. "What if I do want to start tutoring Gally?" You say with a smirk as you tilt your head to the side, teasing Minho.

"Oh please. Your mine now princess and I'm not letting Gally, or anyone else for that matter, anywhere near you." He says, and even though he's ginning while he says it, you can tell that he's being completely serious. "Now where were we?"

ok guys this is it!! plz lemme know if u liked it or if theres anything you guys think I should work on/ do better whenever I write these in the future. Also if u guys want to give me any other prompts for me to write, or if yall want a pt. 2 with yk smth a lil more spicy then tell me

[frostyhelltime]

A Folly of a Plan

Chapter 2

Chapter 1 here.

Alastor x singerOC

Warnings: None, just Alastor being manipulative. So it's your average day.

Clara could already feel quite easily how charmed she was by him that first night. Everything he did felt…calculated didn't feel quite like the right word, but she couldn't think of another. The leaning back to look more alluring and match her own posture, pulling her closer than he needed to during their dance, his smile...but somehow she didn't mind.

It's when he's back another night and they find themselves chatting by the bar again that she takes note of the gloves she remembered him wearing that first night too. It seemed to be a usual part of his outfit.

"A man of taste I see. These are quite nice gloves." She compliments, used to discerning good fabric from shoddy fabric. A skill her mother instilled in her to help keep up the appearances her father was oh so fond of.

She instinctively reaches for his hand without thinking and Alastor looks over at their connected hands as Clara strokes her thumb against his gloved palm. She at least has the presence of mind to take her hand away quickly. Quite an observant and quick learner, it seems.

“My mother always said that we must dress to impress.” He says, always smiling in his charming way before offering his hand to her.

“You seem to have just as much boundless energy as the other night. Do you need a little help burning off that excess?” He asks, his polite tone not hinting at any kind of ulterior motive.

She looks to the band, listening to the slowed sound they were playing for now. It wasn't bad…and he was right. She did still feel entirely too restless. She chuckles to herself and turns back to him, taking his hand and lifting off her seat.

“Anyone ever tell you you can read people like a book?” She asks playfully as they walk out to the dancefloor. At least the song is slow enough they can continue to talk.

“Once or twice.”

There's a hint of mischief in his eyes and she almost wants to question it.

“As for what your mother said…mine said something similar. She sounds like a brilliant woman.” Clara compliments, unaware of the brownie points she was unknowingly earning by complimenting his mother.

“Likewise.” He chuckles. Their conversation flows far easier than he expected, if he's being honest. He doesn't even realize that not one, not two, but three songs have passed by the time they stop chattering enough to check the time. She was quick witted and easy to talk to, had fascinating opinions on everything, from politics to business to theatre and music. He could see them being quite good friends. He supposes when he's no longer being gossiped about and he dumps her, he'll have to try to see if they can remain amicable. But he's getting ahead of himself now.

Clara is actually a little sad when she's worked out that excess energy and ready to return to the bar with him. Perhaps she'll ask him if he'll come see her perform again, so she can steal another dance.

It's when they go back to sit at the bar that she addresses Roy again.

"I know it's a pain but could you make a sidecar for little ol' me?" Clara asked, batting her eyelashes even though they both knew she didn't have to. It's easy for the man to just huff a laugh and roll his eyes playfully.

"Only because you asked so nicely.”

Once Roy has gone to attend to other customers and they were left alone again, he turns to her.

“How about ‘I Can't Give You Anything But Love'? For my request, I mean. There are some…difficult high notes in the song but you seem to be fond of those sorts of songs.” He comments, having noticed the types of songs she likes to cover, both from seeing her perform and their talks on their own favorite singers.

As they sit at the bar and sip their drinks, he's fishing in his pocket for something before he pulls out a business card. He looks around and grabs a leftover pen from the bar and begins writing down something.

“As much as I enjoy keeping your company all to myself…I do have a radio show. I think it would be marvelous to have you come on and sing a song or two.” He says, glancing at her briefly. He has to hold back a chuckle at how shocked she looks, not realizing the connection she had made when they met.

Her mouth falls open in shock, eyes wide a moment. If she was more cognizant she would feel foolish for acting so silly. But there's no time to think about that as she nods her head rapidly, pulling herself together and beaming at him.

"Oh I would absolutely love to!!" She agrees quickly, leaning a bit closer to see what he was writing, but not so close she would accidentally touch him.

“I get recognition for discovering new talent,you get more eyes on you and this…” He pauses a moment, trying to think of a word that was more complimentary than what he wanted to say.

“...venue.” He finishes and she snickers a moment, knowing full well he was being polite. The place wasn't a dump. But it certainly wasn't the fanciest place.

She certainly wouldn't have minded being close to him and casually touching him, but the fact he's wearing gloves indoors and the way he seemed to recoil slightly when Roy's hand accidentally brushed against his to hand off a drink earlier...she thinks he probably isn't a touchy person in general, and makes sure to keep her hands to herself unless he initiates. It's easy to not be bothered by it though, his charming smile making her own feel so effortless.

Her smile goes from exuberant to simply content, although it's clear she's still excited and almost unable to sit still with this new offer before her. It's almost…adorable, he thinks.

"Will you...come to another show?" She asks tentatively, holding the card close to her chest as if it's a valuable treasure.

"You'll see me here again, my dear. I can assure you of that." He says with his signature smile and added a wink before he departs. Alastor notices Clara reach for him in her excitement to thank him for the opportunity, and then stop, taking her hand back before she made contact. She must be observant as well. That may be a problem later on for him but he wasn’t going to worry about it for now. Right now he was just going to enjoy the fact that for the duration of this plan he wouldn't be tormented by constant touching.

"It was very lovely to see you again, Miss Massou." He says giving a polite bow before he says goodbye and heads out himself, giving her one last playful wink before he does.

Clara beamed, still on cloud nine from the business card still resting securely in her hands.

There's a slight rosiness to her cheeks and a bashful smile on her face when he winks at her as he goes, and it's clear that, at least from him, she enjoys the attention.

"I can't wait. It was very lovely seeing you again too." She calls out as he's leaving, standing and doing a small curtsy herself to be polite, a well-practiced motion she has done many times for many different events...but not usually in a place like this.

She can tell he seems a bit old fashioned, but there's something about that she finds endearing, and even charming. He seems old fashioned in all the right ways, she thinks. Polite, a gentleman, but modern in the right aspects as well. He was in a jazz bar after all. He also seems earnestly polite, like he's respectful because it's what he wants to do, and not because it's what others tell him to do. There's also something about that she quite likes as well. She looks down at the card again once he's gone, biting her lip to contain a soft squeal of excitement before getting ready to leave herself.

———⋅˚₊‧♬ ‧₊˚ ⋅———

She's positively giddy as she walks through town, a brilliant smile on her face that she can't hide as she passes people by on the way to the radio station. This time she wasn't dressed up as the glamorous Clara Massou, in a fancy and tight dress, and alluring smokey eyes and red lips beckoning you from across the room. That was a getup that looked striking on the stage where she needed to be dramatic, but felt garishly out of place in the light of day. She was dressed as she normally would be during the day. Fresh faced but still beautiful with rosy cheeks, an elegant and more conservative dress covering her frame and keeping her modesty quite well hidden as she carried herself with her normal poise and grace. It would be quite easy to not realize they are one and same woman, with how drastic the wardrobe and makeup changes are.

She smooths out her dress almost absentmindedly, more of a nervous habit than anything before she knocks on the door to the station, her eyes lighting up when she hears the door open.

"Hello again! Its Clara." She explains almost immediately, in case the change in appearance has him stumped since he has only met her a few times.

Alastor, for his part simply looks confused until she speaks, and the voice clicks for him.

“My, my. What a transformation.” He hums aloud to himself, opening the door wider for her as he looks her over. Quite a chameleon apparently.

Clara has to hold back a small giggle at the quickly covered look of surprise Alastor has at seeing her so differently today. Surprise is quite a cute look on him, she thinks.

"I'm so delighted to be here! Thank you for having me!" Her smile is earnest and truthful as she does a polite curtsy for him in place of a handshake, thinking he would likely prefer that. The edge of his smile quirks up just a little more naturally at that, his shoulders relaxing a bit as she walks past him without touching him.

“I'm just as delighted. I have to say I am surprised. You look like an entirely different person…” He shakes his head in fascination. “But still just as beautiful, of course.” No sense wasting time when it's clear she's interested. The sooner he can date her, the sooner he can be done with it all.

She smiles back at him, not turning her head away even as she feels her cheeks redden just the slightest bit.

"And I see you're just as handsome and charming as I remember, thankfully." She compliments him back, her tone polite enough that it could be seen as a genuine compliment instead of a flirtation. Of course...there was no way of knowing for sure though. But she wouldn't flirt so shamelessly and obviously. Yet, anyway.

“Nervous?” He asks her curiously as he leads her in, getting her some water for now and himself a cup of coffee.

She looks bashfully down at her foot, which she can't seem to stop tapping against the ground.

“How could you tell?” She jokes even as she takes the water and drinks.

“You'll do fine, I'm sure. Your voice is magnificent.” He compliments, and not even as an attempt to further woo her. He had met many talented people in his life that he had brought into his station but it's been awhile since he had brought someone on with talent like hers.

He helps her get set up in the sound booth with him pretty easily. She at least seemed familiar with recording equipment, which wasn't surprising given her clear passion to have a music career. She still looks nervous as she sits across from him in front of her own microphone. But there's no more time to delay. The show must go on and it was almost time to go live.

Alastor welcomes back the audience and introduces Clara reminding them that he had found her at the local jazz club he likes to go to. Short, sweet, simple intro.

When it was her turn to speak he leans back in his chair listening to her, his eyes watching carefully. Alastor could tell she was nervous which was cute in a way but he understood why her nerves were so heightened. This was quite the opportunity for her, he imagines.

She's nervous as she speaks, and she sounds like it too at first but the more she talks the more she transforms back into the woman he saw on stage.

“H-Hi! Hello! This is Clara Massou. I'm so happy to be here with you all today. I really wanted to show off my range of capabilities. So..I do hope you enjoy what I've prepared!" She begins and takes a deep breath before the music starts.

She's still clearly fighting her nerves until the music starts, and then it's almost as if a switch has been flipped and then she's truly the stage siren he saw back in the jazz lounge again. She closes her eyes and feels the music just as much as she sings it, despite the only one able to see her being Alastor. Her voice is soft and full of longing at first before it begins to build, her strength and power coming through, eventually building into such a powerful and clear sound that it's hard not to be captivated by her working her craft expertly, even without the visual of seeing her facial expressions full of passion.

There was something hypnotizing about her voice and he knew it wasn't just him that thought that. Being the observant man that Alastor was he witnessed her voice captivating the audience at the lounge, and he's relieved to see it hadn't been a fluke or a one time thing.

When Clara really began to sing Alastor closed his eyes for a moment, just enjoying the woman's voice. It truly was pleasant to the ears. When she finishes he claps his two hands together before taking the microphone and signing off for the night.

She was so lost in what she loves that she blinks in surprise, jumping slightly when she hears him clap, practically forgetting for a moment he was there.

“You heard her here first folks. Be on the lookout for the name you're sure to see everywhere someday, Clara Massou!” He grins at her and gives her a playful wink. The high praise and wink to go along with it just makes her blush, a smile so big on her face she thinks her cheeks may hurt later.

“In the meantime you can find her singing at the Sapphire Flame on 7th Street.” He is focused on his broadcast again and doesn't even realize she's staring at him until he's officially off the air. Once he does he turns to face her fully, an eyebrow raised.

“What?” He asks her curiously.

“Sorry. You're just…a natural. You sound like you were made for radio!” She gushes excitedly, her hands clasped together as she praises him.

He actually laughs at that, instead of a reserved chuckle this time.

“I'm glad. Radio to me is what music seems to be to you.” He says. If there's one thing he can't deny, it's her passion for it. But passion only gets you so far. Fortunately, much like him, he thinks she has both the skills and the charisma to go far.

Shame this is all a farce. He imagines they would be quite the power couple if they stayed together.

"I have no doubt there will be talent agencies reaching out to you at the jazz lounge soon enough." Alastor says giving Clara a friendly nod as he stands and opens the door for them to walk through and leave the booth.

"I hope so!" She nods vehemently, unable to hide her excitement as they walk out. Nor would she want to. "I have butterflies in my stomach just like the first night I was the main singer at the lounge." She laughs and smiles almost bashfully, looking away slightly as she recalls the way her heart had pounded in anticipation when she stepped onto that stage by herself for the first time.

"This was just absolutely wonderful. Thank you again for inviting me." She says politely, doing a small but polite curtsy out of habit. Another softer edge to the smile of his at her quite polite habit, that he's pieced together is for his benefit. Besides, he always found good manners charming, after all.

“Of course. I do hope you'll still save me a dance after your performances, even as you get popular.” He says, voice dropping a little lower as he moves closer to her. He can tell his attempts at flirting are certainly working from the way her breath hitches and her eyes widen.

He is handsome and charming, and she's aware he knows it. She was used to a lot of men flashing their money and/or good looks and assuming that was enough. But that wasn't exactly her style. Good looks and money were great obviously, but if the personality wasn't right for her, she could care less about their net worth or their looks. He didn't do any of that. He didn't show off his money or anything like that. He was just...him. He just…showed his charms, his politeness, his good taste, his humor…how she could possibly say no to that offer?

“O-of course.” She manages to get out when her throat doesn't feel so dry.

———⋅˚₊‧♬ ‧₊˚ ⋅———

Over the next few weeks, Clara finds she starts to look for him in the crowd during her performances, smiling nice and big when he catches her eye. She's really started looking forward to their dances and conversations afterwards too, usually heading over to where he was after a show once she's done a little bit of networking and fan service. Neither one says anything about the fact that routine has become a habit, but it's an unspoken rule that they follow.

This night was no different, although she was taking a little longer than usual get over there, talking to a man in a business suit excitedly as he hands her a card.

In the past the brunette haired man would only go to the lounge a few times a week but now he had been going nearly everyday. Just to see her. At first it was just to continue this little game of flirtation they so publicly did, but eventually he realized he was going regardless.

He was once again making small talk with Roy while he waited for her to inevitably get to him. It was like clockwork. Alastor shows up, chats with Roy, listens to her sing, chats some more while she networks, and then they can dance and talk the night away as much as they please.

Clara bounces over and sits in the chair next to Alastor and holds out a fancy looking business card for them to see, oddly more energetic than usual, and seemingly bursting with the urge to speak.

"That fella over there is hosting a private party with some people, and one or two of them are from the music industry and he wants me to perform! He said he heard me on your radio show, Alastor! And he just had to come check me out himself to see if I would be a good fit for the gig!" Clara is looking at Alastor as she talks excitedly at first, practically bouncing in her seat in uncontained excitement.

Alastor looks at Clara, hardly surprised. "See what did I tell you cheri?" He says, testing the waters with a cute nickname he's sure will likely make the red on her cheeks bloom, like he's gotten the hang of causing. She blinks a few times, eyes widening as she processes the name. Once she does, her rosy cheeks are evident as she glanced to the side and smiles to herself, clearly pleased with the name choice. Exactly as he thought.

He thinks now is the perfect time to strike.

"Are you busy or would you care to join me outside for a walk in the moonlight? It is rather stuffy in here." He says.

Then she's looking up at him again despite her blush and she's nodding almost immediately, unable to hide any eager edge to her voice.

"That sounds just lovely! I bet the sky looks just beautiful tonight." She nods again, standing up off the stool once she finishes her drink.

Alastor was solely focused on Clara as they spoke. The way her blue irises were blinking, the way she blushed when he called her cheri, and how she was oh so quick to agree to join him. His plan was going perfectly. He had her nearly eating out of his palm.

Once she has a coat on to keep herself warm she gladly leaves with Alastor, Clara talking to him about her opinion on what he talked about on his radio show that day.

“-and you were completely right about the cast at Pearl Theatre! They truly outdid themselves this time!”

She had been a little shy about admitting she listened to it at first, but the more they talked and spent time together the more she enjoyed hearing his thoughts and opinions on topics.

Alastor listened to her, actually a little surprised she had become such an avid listener. "Ahh, so you listen to me? I am flattered." He says smoothly. His smile only grew wider, but genuinely wider as she shyly explained when she first listened in. It had been the day after she had appeared, it seemed. So she had meant it when she had complimented him so earnestly that day.

Despite being bashful before she has a bit of her brazen courage back again now that they're alone.

"I do! I found myself listening after that day and I don't think I can stop now." She laughs as she walks alongside him.

You truly do have such a wonderful voice made for radio." She finds herself sighing wistfully as she compliments him. She even thinks perhaps she can be a bit bolder, at least with that pet name he called her earlier.

"It's just an absolute shame your listeners don't get to see that you look as good as you sound." She looks to him and bats her eyelashes, a coy smile on her face as she flirts back a little less subtly. It has become easier to be herself when it was just the two of them, at least when he wasn't throwing her off balance with his own flirtations. Her natural self was more confident, outgoing, and bold than the usual scattered mess he seemed able to reduce her to sometimes.

“Oh? I suppose that's some knowledge you'll have to live with being the sole owner of.” He teases before gently taking her hand and tugging her out of the way of a puddle she's about to step in as if he wasn't the one that usually recoiled at most casual touches she's seen him have to endure. On the other hand he doesn't seem to realize the unusual action of his, but Clara does, and her heart is beating faster knowing he reached for her first, even if it was just to keep her from mussing up her shoes.

She's so distracted by that fact, and the fact he doesn't let her hand go afterwards for a few moments that she doesn't quite realize he's talking to her again at first.

"Ah. I'm sorry. What?" She blinks a moment, her gaze shifting from his hand to his face again.

“I said...If I might be so…bold. Would you perhaps be interested in dinner with me sometime?” He asks, as if he isn't nervous at all. Which he isn't, to be honest. No need to be nervous when you're so very sure she'll say yes.

Despite his obvious flirtations, and her even more obvious ones, she's still taken aback when he actually asks her out. She feels almost silly for not expecting it, especially when she's normally so very used to people asking her out. Except this time she would actually like to accept.

"I would love to!” She says the words so quickly they practically run together. “Name a time and place and I'll make sure I'm there in my best!" She says in a forcefully more calm voice, doing a small twirl in her current dress for emphasis despite her trying to make her voice sound less eager. Although whether she's emphasizing her figure or her dress was up for debate.

Alastor chuckles, placing his hand over his mouth as he watches the display she puts on.

"Hmmm." He hums. "Lets say this Friday? I will pick you up at six o'clock and take you to a real nice place?" Alastor questions, smiling at her eagerness. He was very pleased that he was wrapping Clara around his finger but he didn't realize that she wasn't the only one; didn't realize the small ways he was becoming more comfortable with her, and the way their dynamic was shifting and becoming easier between them from all the casual talks and the way their personalities meshed so well, like tides pulling at each other.

"That sounds perfect. I'll make sure I'm ready!" She's happy to agree, nailing down the details of where to pick her up. She feels like she's on cloud nine all the way home, humming delightfully to herself as she takes a bath and thinks of what to wear, deciding to spoil herself a little and use some of the fancy oils and perfumes for the bath that her father usually brought back from business trips.

Although, on the other side of town, as Alastor looked over the address she gave him for a pick up spot for their date, he chews on his lip nervously. He began to wonder if perhaps he had picked the wrong target. Perhaps picking up someone from that neighborhood might be a little more attention than he bargained for…

But still...surely he could figure something out if there were any troubles.

[forlovvers]

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯ get a guitar!

pair: heeseung x f!reader | genre: uni!au, strangers2???, meet cute | warning(s): profanity | wc: 800 | synopsis: in which heeseung is absolutely floored by you and decides a little white lie won’t hurt to gain your attention.

lynne’s notez🗒️: first heeseung post did anyone cheer

heeseung sat on the bustling train, jay’s guitar case nestled between his legs to keep it from sliding everywhere. jay is the only person he’d know to forget his guitar on the big day of his music presentation. he fondles with the worn out handles, absentmindedly tapping his fingers to the beat of the song playing through his airpods.

another person squeezes next to him on the train seat and heeseung really wishes he would’ve just ubered. that thought is instantly wiped from his memory when someone taps him on the shoulder and he turns to see you. the wind is knocked out of his lungs and heeseung swears the angels start singing when you make eye contact.

you’re so pretty heeseung feels the need to reach out to touch you to make sure he’s not dreaming, although you certainly are dreamy. but he does not do that, instead, heeseung plucks his airpods out and gives you his full attention.

“do you play?” you ask, gesturing to jay’s guitar case. there’s something about you that makes heeseung become at a loss for words, so he nods without a second thought— even though he can’t play for shit.

“cool, i’m headed to my music comp class right now.” you grin, showing him your guitar case. it’s denim and theres a sanrio character keychain that hangs from the zipper. heeseung can’t remember which one it is, but he only thinks about how it slightly resembles his friend, jake.

“do you have a favorite guitar?” you ask. once you notice the confusion across his face, you clarify. “like acoustic or electric?”

“oh yeah, i mostly play acoustic.” he manages to get out. “what about you? what do you prefer?” he asks, unconsciously leaning in towards you to hear you better. the busy train was not getting in the way of his chances with you. he’s close enough to smell your perfume and count the freckles on your face, but he stops himself. he’s nearly planning your wedding and yet he doesn’t even know your name.

“i play acoustic too,” you say, liking that you two already have something in common. you look up and realize that you’re one stop away from your class, a small puddle of disappointment filling your gut. you couldn’t even talk to the cute boy on the bus in peace.

you clear your throat, “my stop’s coming up.”

“oh.” it seems like cute bus boy is also disappointed because his lips flip into a tight frown before he tries to cover it up with a light smile. “let me walk you to your class,” he quickly offers.

“are you sure? do you have somewhere you need to be?” you ask hesitantly, not wanting to get in the way. the boy shakes his head, brushing off any of your concern. once you’re sure, you agree and let him walk you to your class.

campus is much more beautiful than usual today. you aren’t sure if it’s the nice, sunny weather or the cute boy walking next to you to one of your favorite classes. either way it looks like your awful week is looking up.

the walk to class is filled with silly questions and short conversations about each other but you don’t necessarily mind. you reach your class and stop slowly in front of it. “so i guess this is where we part ways?” you say, watching as he shoves his hands into his pockets.

“oh yn, thank god you’re here!” jay comes from out of the class, interrupting your moment with the cute bus boy. jay smiles at the bus boy and quickly grabs the guitar case from him and thanks him. he then turns to you, “do you wanna practice before we go up?”

“wait a second,” you look back and forth between the two. “that’s your guitar?”

“yeah why?” jay grabs the other end of the case and shows you the name tag where he’s messily written his full name.

“okay, you can head in. i’ll be there in a sec.” you tell him and although theres many questions turning in jay’s head, he shrugs it off and goes in anyway, shooting heeseung another “thanks bro.”

“so, you don’t play the guitar?”

“i guess i just wanted to impress you.” he admits sheepishly, rubbing the back of his nape. he can’t seem to look you in the eyes. you aren’t sure if its because he’s embarrassed or shy, either way he’s still cute unfortunately.

“you can make it up to me by taking me out for dinner tonight,” you decide finally and the biggest grin breaks out across heeseung’s face.

“i’ll learn a song on the guitar and serenade you too,” he suggests, grinning ear to ear. long story short, heeseung very much serenaded you that night.

[fckinwild-kiwi]

Dec. 4th: Wear My Clothes Forever

Day 4: Borrowing Clothes/Getting a Pet Together

Here is day FOUR of @comp-lady’s December writing challenge!

Warnings: Swearing, SMUT (This is an 18+ blog, minors dni)   Word Counts: 1.2k+ Words Pairings: Steve Harrington x Reader

Author’s Note: Yesterday I wrote in the third person, today I am going to try the first person. Again, it’s not something I am used to so if you have any tips or critique, please send them my way! <3 Also, this is the first time I’ve written any kind of smut in a while and it feels like the most awkward and cringe thing I’ve ever written so please be kind. :)

Dating Steve Harrington after being his friend for years seemed to only require a simple shift. There were differences, of course. For one, I was no longer eyeing him from a distance. I could kiss him anytime I felt like it and I could openly admire the man I loved without fear of rejection. But underneath it all, he was still my best friend.

“Baby,” I heard Steve call from the kitchen as I walked into his house. His parents were once again gone as they had been absent for the past month. 

“Hi, Stevie,” I called back, taking off my shoes before entering the kitchen. “I’ve missed you today."

“Yeah?” Steve asked, pulling me into him for a kiss. As soon as his lips touched mine, my body melted into him. As he pulled away, Steve mumbled, “I think I’ve missed you more.”

“Agree to Disagree, Harrington,” I said, pulling him back in for another kiss. Instead of a welcome home, there was a sense of longing an urgency that only he could fix. Steve understood, swiping his tongue across my bottom lip, asking for more. As I pulled him closer to me, slightly parting my mouth to welcome him in. With our heavy breathing mixing together, I could feel the need radiating off of him. His hands snaked underneath my shirt to feel my skin. “Baby,” I mumbled against his lips, leaning back just enough to break the kiss. 

“What did you just call me?” Steve questioned, leaning back fully, and opening his eyes to look at me. 

“Baby.”

“Fuck,” Steve moaned, his face heating up in a pink blush. “You’ve never called me that before.”

“I don’t have to say that, I’m sorry, it just slipped out,” I said, instantly feeling a wave of insecurity flood my body. 

“No, honey,” Steve said, already wide eyes somehow getting even wider. “I don’t think I ever want to hear you call me anything else ever again.”

“Oh really?” I said, laughing as relief now took over my body. “The nickname has that kind of power over you?”

There was something so empowering about this encounter. To know that I could do something that made him weak or feely needy, changed everything. And it made sense, here in front of me was a boy who just wanted to be loved and I was so happy to be the one to shower him with it.

“You have that power over me.”

“Oh Stevie,” I sighed, wrapping my arms around his slim waist. “How about we get changed into some cozy clothes, order some takeout, and watch a movie?”

“That sounds like a dream, babe.”

Together, we walked upstairs to Steve’s bedroom which had quickly become my second bedroom as often as I slept over. Falling into a familiar routine, Steve walked over to his dresser drawers and pulled out a pair of boxers and a t-shirt for me before pulling a pair of sweats out for himself. 

“I’m not sure I’ll ever get over the fact that I am the only one who gets to see you wearing your grey sweatpants and no shirt.”

“The sweatpants do it for you, huh, babe?”

“Oh my god, yes,” I groaned before quickly stripping to throw on the clothes Steve got out for me. “It might be the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“No,” Steve said, staring at me, his gaze darkening. “You, wearing my shirt is hands down the sexiest thing this world has  seen.”

“Yeah, baby?”

“Fuck,” Steve breathed out, taking a quick step towards me. “Can I prove it to you?”

“I think you better,” I mumble, then moan when he grabs my face, bringing our lips together in a searing kiss. Breaking the kiss, Steve sinks to his knees, looking up at me with lustful eyes. 

“Can I?”

“Please,” I whispered. Steve stood up, guiding me backward towards his bed before pushing my (his) shirt up above my hips to grab my panties. My pulse speeds up. Steve stopped moving, eyes darkening as he continued raking his eyes across my body. “What?” I question, leaning up on my elbows to try and understand what has thrown him off.

“You’re so God damn beautiful, baby,” Steve growled as he spread my legs, causing me to clench my legs together at his sudden roughness unconsciously. Before I could respond, he took this opportunity to begin peppering wet kisses up my thighs. His hands glide up my torso before cupping my breasts. Heat rips through me and my hips arch up as I beg for the friction to release some of the pressure building.

“Stay still baby, be good for me,” he whispers, looking up at me with his big brown eyes as he reaches down to hold my hips in place before pressing his lips against my clit.

“Shit,” I moaned, not expecting the touch. “Please, Stevie, I need it so bad.”

Before I could beg any more, Steve swirls his tongue around my clit before sucking gently causing me to arch up, grinding my pussy on his face. Steve drags a finger up my leaking pussy, before looking at me, asking for permission. As I nod my head, he thrusts his finger in, curling upward to reach that spongey spot that had me clenching around his fingers.

“More, baby.” And then Steve added another finger, my hands threading through his hair to ground myself in the euphoria as I chased my high. “I’m so close, Stevie, don’t stop!”

And he didn’t. I’m gasping for air, writhing on the bed, as Steve continues relentlessly eating me out. “Fuck, fuck, I’m coming,“ I scream as the orgasm comes. It hits me like a tsunami. A giant wave crashes over me with small flutters of shocks coursing through me as my body relaxes and begins coming back down.

“I changed my mind, you, fucked out like this, is the sexiest thing I have ever seen,” Steve said before crawling up and kissing me. “Stay right here baby, let me get a towel.”

“Wait,” I said, grabbing onto his arm. “What about you, can I return the favor?”

“No, baby,” Steve chuckled. “I got off to you, I wasn’t lying when I said that was the hottest thing.”

“Oh my god, you dirty boy,” I yelled out, as Steve walked into his ensuite to grab the towel. 

“What can I say,” he said, coming back into the bedroom before taking the warm washcloth to wipe away the mess. “You do it for me, honey.”

“I love you, baby.”

“And now I’m hard again,” Steve groaned, throwing the rag in his dirty clothes basket as I let out a chuckle. At this point, I was unsure how we were both so clueless before as to how the other felt when he was so open with his feelings and love. 

“Should we order some dinner and make our way downstairs?”

“Only if you promise to wear only my clothes for the rest of our lives."

“How about I promise to wear only your clothes for the rest of the night? I’m not sure my boss would like to see me in your shirt and panties.”

“You’re right, you in my clothes is for my eyes only,” Steve grumbled, rolling onto his side and pulling me into him. “And I love you too, honey. What do you think about Chinese for dinner tonight?”

“Chinese sounds great,” I said, wrapping my arms around Steve’s waist and raising my head in the crook of his neck. And finally, things made sense.

[greensparty]

RIP Clem Burke as well as Al Barile and Dave Allen

It's a sad day for fans of punk, hardcore and new wave music. Here is my combined tribute to all three musicians we just lost:

Remembering Clem Burke 1954-2025

This one hurts. Drummer Clem Burke has died at 70. He joined NYC's Blondie in 1975 and had been with the band since and played on all of their albums. They were the band that was at the center of both punk and new wave. They were edgy enough to be CBGB's regulars, but catchy enough for top 40 radio and eventually had some #1 hits like "Heart of Glass", "Call Me", "Rapture" and "The Tide is High". While singer Debbie Harry was the star, Burke was the truly the beat of the band and had a real punk spirit to him. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006. Their music combined loads of different genres and they can also boast that they had the very first #1 song to feature rap vocals with "Rapture". They were also music video pioneers, making music videos as far back as 1977.

Burke in the 70s

After the band's initial breakup in 1982, Burke was busier than ever playing on albums and performing with The Eurythmics, Bob Dylan, Pete Townshend, Iggy Pop, The Plimsouls, Kathy Valentine and The Go-Go's as well as briefly playing with The Ramones as "Elvis Ramone" and in The Romantics. Then in 1997, Blondie reunited and continued to tour and record ever since. Burke was also a part of supergroups like The International Swingers with Glen Matlock and The Empty Hearts with Elliot Easton. When I interviewed Matlock in 2023, he said "I’ve been friends with Clem for a long time. He’s the one who asked me to help out on the last Blondie tour when they were stuck because their previous bass player couldn’t do it. Leigh Foxx [Blondie’s studio bassist] was a very good bass player and a good guy. So I’m honored to be asked to do that, but I’ve worked with Clem on many a projects. Some good, some kinda bad, right? But we play well with each other."

my No Exit CD autographed by Blondie including Clem Burke

I first heard Blondie when I was very young and then as I got older discovered their music as a teen when I picked up The Best of Blondie, which compiled hits from their first five albums. A fantastic comp! When their reunion album No Exit was released in 1999, my ex-GF went to an in-store signing they did and got them to sign a CD for me, which I still have! Later that year, I saw them on the No Exit Tour at Harbor Lights in Boston. They played tons of hits and Burke was quite impressive drumming on hits like "Atomic" and "Call Me". I actually just recently picked up Parallel Lines (arguably their best album) on vinyl and it still holds up.

Burke (far right) with The Empty Hearts

In 2020, I got to review The Empty Hearts' album The Second Album, which I gave 3.5 out of 5 stars to. That was quite a supergroup with Burke joining Easton of The Cars, Wally Palmer of Burke's other band The Romantics, and Andy Babiuk of The Chesterfield Kings. In my review I wrote "This album as a whole might not grab you the way a Cars or Blondie album does, but give it a chance. The more you listen it gets better and you find yourself humming along!" I was right!

The link above is the obit from Deadline.

Remembering Al Barile 1962-2025

Barile onstage circa 1980s

SS Decontrol (called SSD in their later years) guitarist Al Barile has died at 63. They were a big part of the Boston hardcore scene from 1981-1985. They influenced many political bands that came along later like Nirvana and Pearl Jam. Barile later formed the Boston band Gage.

The link above is the obit from Vanyaland.

Remembering Dave Allen 1955-2025

Allen circa late 70s

Gang of Four bassist Dave Allen has died at 69. He was the U.K. post-punk band's bassist from 1976-1981 and re-joined from 2004-2008. Their influence was immense. Kurt Cobain noted their influence on Nirvana (another Nirvana influence).

The link above is the obit from Hollywood Reporter.

[qnewsau]

Brisbane's Vollie LaVont shares her "Dirty Little Secrets"

New Post has been published on https://qnews.com.au/brisbanes-vollie-lavont-shares-her-dirty-little-secrets/

Brisbane's Vollie LaVont shares her "Dirty Little Secrets"

Each month we ask local entertainers to spill the tea about themselves, their craft and the local scene.

For February, we hear from multi-award-winning drag star Vollie LaVont.

  The first time I did drag was…

In a theatre production in 2010 called TuckShop: The Musical, where I played my dream role of a tuck shop mum. The following year I entered and won a drag competition at The Beat Megaclub and Vollie LaVont was born.

I chose my drag name because…

My mum growing up would always cook Vol-au-vents and I’m a big ABBA fan and love the song Voulez-Vous. So I do believe my gay mind over a few drinks formed the two and boom, Vollie LaVont.

I would describe my drag as…

Fabulously fun, Lovingly irreverent and always inclusive.

My best skill in being a drag performer is…

Hosting shows. Now I love lip-syncing my heart out pretending to be a pop star on stage. But nothing brings me more joy than getting to host shows,I love getting on the mic and being able to connect with the audience, tell jokes and bring joy and laughs to people.

  View this post on Instagram

  A post shared by The Wickham (@thewickham)

My family’s reaction to me doing drag was…

Not too surprised at all. I’ve always been performing on stage and mostly the living room growing up. So anything performing didn’t surprise them. Mum also would have probably told dad to not over react, let’s be real.

But once I started making a full time living from drag, there’s not much that can be said I guess. 13 years later and it’s now just normal, my family knows it’s a part of who I am and what I do. They love it. I’m lucky!

Brisbane scene

The Brisbane queer scene is…

Like a big family. Everyone knows everyone or someone who knows someone, and if you don’t, you will by the end of a night out. There’s a big sense of community in Brisbane, people look out for one another. I truly love being a part of the Brisbane community and everyone in it!

Brisbane drag artists are…

Drag artists located in Brisbane, Queensland. Oh and some of the fiercest funnest and versatile performers you will see!

  View this post on Instagram

  A post shared by Club Broadway: Musical Theatre Nightclub (@clubbroadwayco)

The drag performer I’d hate to live with would be…

All of them! But like cos ‘It’s me, Hi, I’m the problem it’s me!’ kind of thing. One drag queen is like having 15 people living in your home. I’m just not strong enough to have another me running around the house, and oh my god, the security I’d have to install to my drag room.

No, what a drama, love yas, but not for me thanks.

The award that meant the most to me was…

Being crowned Clash of the Queens Winner by Michelle Visage. It was such an epic moment and a comp I entered that meant a lot to me and I put my all into it.

It was also a great boost to my career, which led to becoming the host of Fluffy and so many other great opportunities. I’ll always be grateful for that one.

Vollie & Friends

Vollie & Friends is….

My weekly show, Wednesday nights at The Wickham. A fun, more casual, up close night, where we showcase our fabulous local Brissy talents with shows and chats. Plus we have interactive games with the audience and laughs a plenty as we discuss the week’s hot topics and also try to recover from them all at the same time.

It’s one of my favourite nights because I get more time with the audience and it’s a free show for people to attend, which is important for the community to have on offer. So big thanks to The Wickham for supporting the show and having me there each week.

  View this post on Instagram

  A post shared by Vollie LaVont – Drag Queen (@vollielavont)

The most interesting guest I’ve had on V&F is…

Without a doubt, no word of a lie – audience members! You can never rehearse or prepare for what an audience member can do and nothing excites me more than getting people up on stage, getting to know them and just seeing where it takes us.

We play a game called “Dirty Little Secrets” and people confess secrets to me, with always hilarious outcomes.

RuPaul’s Drag Race is…

An entertaining show that has done a fabulous job showcasing queer talent like never before, and the ripple effects from the show’s success have benefited performers, promoters and queer venues, whether involved with the show or not.

Drag queens more than ever are making full-time careers from performing. Drag has extended from nightclubs and into hens, private parties, corporate events and media. Our industry has benefited and grown so much from this show, and hey it’s bloody fun to watch!

Community

The worst thing someone in the audience has done was…

Not heckling, cos I love a heckler. In fact, it’s the moment in life I dream of, I live for it. Please heckle me… if you’re brave. But it’s always when someone jumps on stage during your number. When they do it to me, I pretend to be scared of the human race like Britney Spears does. She’s my idol.

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One message I have for our community is…

To always band together and no ‘in-fighting’, let’s always ‘in-talk’ with each other. People in our community went through so much for us to have the freedoms we have today. Let’s honour that by always working with each other respectfully, to better tomorrow. Oh, and have a brat summer!

Other Queensland performers:

Meet Brisbane’s “7-foot transexual showgirl” Tall Jan

How Shanny T-Bone overcame hate from within our community

Gayleen Tuckwood shares horror story of drugged-up hens gig

How AFAB drag artist Ladybird thrives despite shocking abuse

Henny Spaghetti’s response to being slapped by a fan

Drag King Zelphia Mann calls for representation on Drag Race

Archie Arsenic calls for more accessible queer spaces

For the latest LGBTIQA+ Sister Girl and Brother Boy news, entertainment, community stories in Australia, visit qnews.com.au. Check out our latest magazines or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. 

[yourbuerokrat2]

@moonliithe

A bit late but I do always love to comment about an art comp about these two.

I love the arrogance in the first picture especially as Judge!Q. That look of self-satisfaction as he judges and plays with the ocntinued existence of other species? Great!

I also love the surprised face at Q facing the actions of his own actions. Because I am pretty sure that throughout his endless life the Continuum has given Q thousands if not millions of warnings and asking him to leave but no. He probably has quite the impressive criminal record among the Q. And you would think that one with such a large potential criminal record and having quite the list of people in the universe who would probably like nothing more than to wipe that arrogance from his face once and for all that he would have had some kind of plan for the time all of this eventually catches up to him. I mean, he should have had a better plan for the eventuality that the Qs will throw him out for good. But no, he was probably genuinly caught off-guard by the sentence that he has only a few seconds to choose another species and a new place to live. And instead of choosing the next most powerful species and the most secure place he can think of he chooses humanity on the Enterprise. I mean that must have been quite the spontanous thought and panicked decision.

Considering it is kind of canon that Picard is into confident and very independent people I do hc that Picard genuinly feels some attaraction to Q and lwaxana and both of these beings can tell that there is a deeply buried part of Picard that is.. excited to see them. And for Picard each time he is confronted with that buried part because he knows what might happen if he indulged it even for a few moments always becomes so very defensive about it. Deanna is the only one who knows and she is nice enough to never, ever bring it up during their therapy session.

'TWF Picard doesn't wanna be your bestie' but seriously I have seen a close up scene for how genuinly hurt and then angry looks after Picard rejects him from joining his crew. I mean, Q looks genuinly surprised and hurt as if him kidnapping PIcard to a far away shuttle in the middle of nowhere with the Enterprise having no way to contact their captain and Picard having no other choice but to comply with Qs wish unless he wants to die in that shuttle with only Q for his company is not a huge deal breaker and a clear indicator that Q is operating so far away from human thinking and morality and that he cannot be part of the crew.

Add to that Guinan, one of the people whose opinion Picard trusts above all, actively being hostile and saying how dangerous Q is and it is no wonder why Picard would not let Q join. Still, it would have been hilarious if Picard asked Q what position he wanted and Q is seirously aijming to be Picards Best Friend aka his Number One aka his First Officer. That look on Rikers face would have been priceless.

'That's so bo-o-rin, mon capitaine' really reminded me why Picard was so horrified at the thought of having to spend eternity with Q. Eternity with a spoiled and echornically bored being that is certainly not going to let Picard spend so much as a day of his afterlife just simply sitting down with a cup of tea and a book. I mean, can you picutre that. Picard sitting down and just hoping after hundreds if not thosuands of years of 'fun', games and Q, who is making it increasingly clear that he wants their 'friendship' to become so much more. Maybe even with a slight bit of paranoia hoping to just have a few moments of solitude and peace and then just as he is about to sit down and open the book Q arrives and they get into an argument and Q just dismisses Picards want for peace and quiet, saying how borign that is and then Picard is forced once again to participate in whatever Q has planned and that is basically how Picards eternity is going to be.

I love that Picard doll and Q definitly has that doll. He pretends and initially only has it because it is funny and he knows that Picard hates that Q has such a doll, or really any doll, of him. But every now and again Q talks to the doll, plays with it and in a disturbingly good impression of Picard pretends like the doll is Picard and Q makes the doll of Picard say all the things Q wants Picard to say. Oh Q you are the superior life form you are also so much better than anyone else in my life. Even Riker and Beverly and especially Guinan pale when I compare them to youl. You are the best Q and I dream each night of the day we can finally be together forever' The other Qs at this point have chosen to ignore Qs general existence and pretend to be unable to hear Q when he does that. Although there were a few Qs who have seen Q.. cuddle with that strange replica of the human.

Some Q's, but Picard is also there now, kind of... Honestly I still don't know how to draw bald ppl so Q will continue stay (mostly) bitchless (for now)

[shuyamino]

LUXIEM IN COLLEGE

pairing(s) : ✒ ،، mysta rias x reader | ike eveland x reader | vox akuma x reader | luca kaneshiro x reader | shu yamino x reader

content : ✒ ،، SFW | college au | fluff | headcanons + blurb | gender neutral pronouns | meet cutes, for the most part

summary : ✒ ،، You're attending Nijisanji University and meet a couple of interesting characters ...

note : ✒ ،، my 100th post, ayoooo!! some of the details here are from my own experience in uni, which hopefully adds more realism to it :3 i'm currently working on 3 longer wips, so ive been a bit slow with writing. i hope this makes up for it <3!!!

SHU YAMINO AS THE TECH SUPPORT ʿ ⟢

SHU is works at your campus' Genius Center — which is just a fancy way of saying the college IT workers. From what you remembered, they help out with various of tech-related services. Which is perfect for you, after your laptop suddenly died one night.

You basically ran into the campus support center the following morning and thrusted your laptop into the nearest Tech Support you can spot — this essay was due that evening! You knew you shouldn't have procrastinated, but you did anyways.

Shu wasn't too shocked about your actions — by now, it was fairly normal to have various college students panicking in the lobby. He holds your laptop, voice calm as he asks you what the problem is.

You're rambling a bit too much. Jumping around topics and making a flurry of hand movements. But he's nodding along, lips still curved to a comforting smile as he leads you towards one of the desks in the small building.

Once you finish your explanation, he has your laptop open and clicking away at the keyboard.

"Um — s-so, can you fix it?" You ask quietly, peeking over his shoulder to look at your laptop screen.

"Well, it looks like you have a... couple of viruses." He answers, craning his neck just to look at you from over his shoulder. "You said you had an essay due soon?" You nod, lips pursed.

"Well… I can help fix up your laptop but if you had your essay saved in a Drive, you can borrow a laptop here and finish it up." You thank him as he heads to the back to get you a campus-issued laptop.

For a good chunk of that day, the two of you sat in this corner — him, trying to fix your laptop and you, trying to finish the rest of your essay.

SHU abruptly stops to stretch his arms up above his head, groaning slightly as he fixed his posture. You'd gotten more than half of your essay finished — thankfully you had the foresight to save all of your online references in a separate outlined document. Since you ran to the tech support building the moment you woke up, you didn't have time to eat breakfast. It wasn't long until your stomach began to protest that mistake. Your cheeks burn red as your stomach groaned — just loud enough to catch Shu's attention. His eyes glance over yours, lips slowly curving to a warm smile. "I...was thinking of taking a coffee break, do you want to come grab something with me?"

It isn't until much later after he helped fix your laptop that you find out that the campus tech support doesn't help students with their personal laptops.

Nor do they take them out for coffee.

MYSTA RIAS AS THE CLASS CRYPTID ʿ ⟢

MYSTA is a student that you thought was failing your shared course — he was fairly late the first day and looked like he rolled out of bed before running to the lecture hall.

He sat beside you at the back corner of the lecture hall after being sternly reprimanded by your professor. He didn't seem to be bothered by it, if anything, it looked like the scolding went in one ear and out the other.

The rest of the semester continues like this. Since it's a general edu class, you're not quite sure what his major is. There were some days when it looked like he was doing comp sci work. Another day when he was reading an online textbook about primates (Anthropology, maybe?). And there were even some slower days when he would just sit and watch anime with a pair of discrete Airpods.

There were some days when he'd notice you staring and he'd turn on subtitles and tilt his laptop towards your direction. Other than this, the two of you rarely spoke to each other. Just small talk at most — it was easy to joke with him, at least, but other than that, you didn't really see him outside of this lecture hall.

Least to say, you've grown morbidly curious about him as the semester progressed. There were a few things that you knew about him — he seemed to like the color orange, if his clothes were anything to go by, and he liked anime. In addition to these facts, you were fairly certain that he was failing this class.

So, imagine your shock after receiving the results of your first exam and you spot a clear 100% on Mysta's paper compared to your 69%.

MYSTA must have noticed you staring because his head snapped up from his exam paper directly to you. You jump slightly, startled at getting caught staring. His eyes trail down to your paper, lips curving slightly at the red mark on your paper. Just as you're about to accusatorially ask him what he was grinning at, he points at the number with a laugh. "You got a 69!" Your jaw slacks because it wasn't exactly what you'd expected to come from his mouth, all the while he keeps laughing about the funny number. You're sat there with an absolute deadpan expression all the while the oh-so mysterious classmate laughs at your score. Not because of how badly you'd done — no, he's laughing because it's a sixty-nine. "Aw, don't pout." Mysta says, wiping the tears from the corner of his eyes. His voice lowered, edging slightly towards a mockingly condescending tone. "I can help you study for the next test, if you want~"

The "study session" actually just consisted of watching more anime and eating.

IKE EVELAND AS THE CAMPUS LIBRARIAN ʿ ⟢

IKE works in the campus library!

He's known for being very friendly and approachable. Any and all anxiety disappears the moment you see him. He just has a really comforting vibe! Students that tour first years around campus make sure to tell them about Ike Eveland. ("If you ever need help around the library, find Ike!")

Ike often works behind the counter on the first floor, but there are moments in which he's putting books back where they belong in the other floors of the library.

You frequented the library — mostly taking advantage of the air conditioning, the tables and comfy chairs, and the quiet floor to take naps in during your free time.

When you weren't studying or finishing up course work, you were usually just sitting around the quiet room to take a nap or just have some downtime from your hectic classes and loud campus.

Despite this, you haven't really spoken to Ike. You never had to, anyway. But you have heard of him — more often than not, you hear people around the other floors whispering and giggling about the cute librarian on the first floor. It doesn't take a genius to know who they were talking about.

The first time you meet him was by pure coincidence.

"Stupid book…" You muttered, already standing on your toes as you stretch your arm up above your head. It wasn't even placed on the highest shelf — just a shelf above your reach. None of the step stools were around either, leaving you to fight this alone. Just as your fingertips managed to reach the book's spine, another hand came into view and easily pulled the book out from the shelf. Your head turns, ready to thank your savior, before you realize you're basically face-to-face with the one and only — "Y-You...!" You stammer before you can help it. IKE tilts is head slightly, seemingly unaffected by the distance between the two of you, or the lack there of. His torso is brushing against your back and you're basically caged between his body and the bookshelf. Your heart thrums against your chest — the loud drumming filling your ears as your cheeks fill with heat. "Sorry, it looked like you needed help." He explains, as he holds the book out for you. You close your mouth, hoping that he didn't notice the way your jaw slackened at the sight of him as you wordlessly take the book from his hand. You're fixing your hair before you can help it — a nervous habit at most. The others weren't exaggerating at all, you think, as you sneak another glance at Ike. He is just as pretty as most people say — kind eyes with long, pretty lashes and a kind smile. Is it a little weird to note that he smells like vanilla too? "I'm still around here for a bit, if you need any more help you can come ask me, okay?"

VOX AKUMA AS THE NEW PROFESSOR ʿ ⟢

VOX recently graduated from grad school and is starting his first year as a professor in Nijisanji University! You're lucky enough to be able to attend his first ever class in your last year as an undergrad.

He's teaching English Literature and even while most students are taking this class to fill in for their general education, he expected the lot of you to still take his class seriously.

It's an hour and thirty minute long class and he spends the first few minutes just talking to the class and reading a short poem every Friday.

Even though it's his first time teaching, he's really good at explaining concepts and various analysis. In addition to this, he's very attentive to what the class (and individual) needs.

It's hard to think that it was his first time teaching, not gonna lie.

On top of his attentiveness, Professor Vox was both pleasing to the eyes and ears. It wouldn't be an over-exaggeration to say that he became a fairly popular professor to the entire student body.

As easy as this class was for the most part, you were still struggling with being able to analyze and connect some literary devices.

So, seeing the bright red C- and a 'Please see me after class', in your latest exam wasn't much of a shock

Professor VOX didn't seem disappointed when you approached him at the end of class — if anything, he seemed concerned. You tried to ignore the wary looks your classmates gave you when you approached him though. It was already embarrassing to get such an awful grade, even weirder knowing that your classmates are imagining some weird porn scenario in their head right about now. He greets you kindly despite your grade and is already packing his things up for the next class. You're nervously fidgeting with your thumbs — you've always hated having to talk to professors about your grade. No matter how kind they were. "I'm really sorry," You start, before he can start his 'I'm-not-disappointed' speech. Vox's eyebrows quirk, before his lips curl to a comforting smile. "I just…I kind of understand everything — " "There's nothing to apologize for," He cuts you off with a small wave of his hand. "If anything, I want to be the one to apologize. I should have noticed one of my students struggling." Your heart skips a beat. It's unfair for him to be handsome, attentive, and kind. Your cheeks flush before you can help it — a deep flush that makes you sweat a little under his gaze. "I-I think it's just hard to connect these kinds of things for me." You explain, hoping that your voice doesn't come out too high pitched. "It really isn't your fault." Vox seems to mull it over. "Well, I won't force your hand on the matter, but if you'd prefer, I am open for one-on-one tutoring sessions."

LUCA KANESHIRO AS THE DORM CUTIE ʿ ⟢

The dorms were co-ed, though the male and female rooms were separated in different wings. When you first started college, you were required to live in the dorms.

Bumping into the opposite gender wasn't anything odd, though you'd be a liar to say that you didn't have moments of confusion upon seeing some rando standing about by your dorm room.

You meet LUCA on your way to one evening class — an unavoidable class, unfortunately, if you want to stay on track for your 4-year graduation. You bump into him past the common room, where he's making a sandwich.

You don't recognize him right away, but he does you.

"Oh hey!" He calls out, holding a sandwich in his hand. "I remember you from orientation. Where are you going?"

He seemed friendly enough, so you explain to him where you were heading. It wasn't until a few seconds into the conversation that you realize that he was in your orientation group. His name was at the tip of your tongue — Leo? Luke? — Oh, right! Luca.

LUCA blinks, looking confused when you explained to him where you were heading — almost like it didn't even cross his mind that people would take classes this late in the evening. You stare back, more or less confused about his reaction than anything else. He reminds you of the typical frat boy — wouldn't be too surprised if he did end up joining a fraternity after living in the dorms. Broad shoulders and a big build. And his thin white shirt isn't doing much to hide the dark tattoos on his chest. His medium length blonde hair is messily tied up too, like he'd done it in a hurry to make his sandwich. He is cute though. "Well, I should go." You say, pointing towards the elevator. It was the first day — or, evening, you guess — and you really didn't want to be late, even if it meant being able to talk to someone like Luca. "Oh, wait! I actually have somewhere to go right now. Is it cool if I walk with you?" Luca asks, still smiling brightly with his sandwich. You can't help but squint at him. It was clear that he wasn't planning on going out anywhere. He must have noticed your suspicion because he quickly adds, "It's late, you know. We can keep each other safe!" You realize then what he was hoping to do. You couldn't help but beam at him; your lips curling to a wide smile. You agree to his offer, deciding to play along with his excuse. Just this once. His own face lights up at your response. His response reminds you of a giant giant golden retriever. "Pog! Lemme jus' grab my jacket."

[hyenahunt]

Obbligato: Ship of Fools - 3

Writer: Akira

Season: Winter

Characters: Ibara, HiMERU, Tatsumi, Jun

Proofreading: 310mc + Remi (JP) & honeyspades (ENG)

Translation: hyenahunt & Peace

Jun: ...It's just as I thought — you've definitely changed.

Ibara: Afterwards, His Highness Hiyori shall join us in the afternoon, and we shall all tour Reimei Academy together.

HiMERU: —Well, HiMERU more or less understands what the aim of COMP is now.

Tatsumi: I do as well. There truly are some things which can only be understood with face-to-face communication.

HiMERU: — Or perhaps you hadn't wanted anyone to steal glances at your plan.

The document given to us by the Vice President described COMP quite vaguely, after all,, so HiMERU wasn’t able to grasp what it was at first himself.

However, as Crazy:B is in poor standing right now, there was no other choice but to come when called.

Ibara: Yes, your efforts are greatly appreciated. ...Now, we may not be able to cover for you again the next time you run into such unfortunate circumstances, so do proceed with caution.

HiMERU: —Please forward your complaints to Amagi.

Ibara: It's precisely because he won't listen to me that I'm telling you this, you understand?

Ibara: (Well, no matter. Rinne Amagi-shi may be an infuriating nuisance, but he seems to have especially mellowed down as of late, and is behaving himself out of consideration for his associates.)

(It seems his colleagues have thoroughly chastised him for acting alone without giving them the slightest notice, both during the incident of summer[1] as well as SS...)

(All the same, I doubt that he's the type to reflect on his actions much.)

(But those experiences are bound to tie him down.)

(And as they say, if you want to shoot the general, then first you shoot his horse.[2] With COMP as an excuse this time around, this will be a fantastic opportunity to dig into the parts of Reimei Academy’s dark history that even I don’t know about.

(And I’ll be able to leverage it completely over HiMERU-shi, who was at the center of it all. After all, it seems that this situation isn’t simply a matter of him taking the place of the actual individual himself and acting in his stead.)

(By simply by exposing that fact, HiMERU-shi's life as an idol would potentially be in danger. However, he is no enemy of ours.)

Rather, digging around in the past will enable us to continue using him as a chess piece. Hehehe ♪ )

HiMERU: .....

Jun: What's the matter, Ibara? You're making a weird face...

Ohhh, I got it — it's 'cause you're so unused to words like Live, Laugh, Love that you're not feeling well, isn't it?

Ibara: Just what exactly is your impression of me.

HiMERU: It is as they say, isn't it? Fish find it hard to live in the purity of the Shirakawa river.3

Ibara: Indeed, they yearn instead for the murky swamps of Tanuma.But there isn’t any point in longing for the past; it’s far more essential to keep your eyes fixed on the reality of the present.

It is for such a reason that COMP has come about. As for today's plans, I will explain the details like so.

And you can all wear smiles on your faces as you tell stories of just what a happy school life you all lead at Reimei Academy. That is the kind of promotional video we would like to shoot for the school.

Tatsumi: Oh? Wasn't the plan to film a performance?

Ibara: That will be for another day. Of course, should we have time to spare today, I would like to start practicing our synchronization.

After all, you haven't crossed paths in unit work together before.

So I do not expect you to be in perfect musical harmony together the very same day we initially ask you to sing together..

Of course, with your performance abilities I'm sure you can pull off a reasonably good show — however, reasonably is not quite good enough.

You see, we need those watching the video to think, "I want to become an idol just like them!"

HiMERU: —It seems a little bit like this whole thing is simply propaganda.

Ibara: That is precisely what COMP is meant to be. Do you have any objections to it?

We have power in numbers. If we do not obtain more fresh students for our training school, CosPro will be in dire straits in the future at ES.

It would be an investment in our future to attract those large numbers of people and make them one of our own.

Jun: You've got a point~... As I'm still a student, I can't really think about the future yet, or more like, I can only see what's right in front of me.

But once you're an adult, you can't afford to not think beyond what's ahead of you, huh... It's not like life ends once you graduate, after all.

Ibara: Indeed. Rather, it is life after this youthful period that is longer by far, and this is what everyone should be more conscious of.

HiMERU: —HiMERU understands, so there is no need for you to admonish him.

Rather, the idols at Yumenosaki seem especially unable to detach themselves from their roles as students. They should be ashamed of themselves.

HiMERU is an adult, a professional, and will do the work entrusted to him fully.

Drawing up happy memories of HiMERU's youth is a little bothersome, however.

As it is you who is heading the project, Vice President, surely you've written up a fun script that is at odds with reality, have you not?

If you would allow him to read it, then HiMERU will have not a single problem with playing the role you'd like him to play. HiMERU can even link arms with Sazanami and Tatsumi and call them his friends.

Jun: ...It's just as I thought — you've definitely changed.

HiMERU: Hm? How so? HiMERU has always been perfectly HiMERU, hasn't he?

Jun: Well, yeah, people always change~ But in the past, you were kinda... less composed, or more passionate and fired up —

You were human through and through, just like me, but y'know... right now you seem more like a robot.

HiMERU: .....

✦✦✦✦✦

Referring to the events of Main Story

A Chinese proverb based on a poem by poet Du Fu, meaning 'begin with the lesser things to obtain the greater'.

He references a kyoka (a comicsatirical tanka, which is a type of stanza poem in Japan) which made fun of those who thought that the corrupt politics of former daimyo Okitsugu Tanuma were better than the harsh reforms set to fix the Dhirakawa domain's situation done by the then-ruling daimyo Matsudaira Sadanobu

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[alaffy]

Riverdale, Ep. 7x05 - Tales in a Jugular Vain (spoilers)

Like last week, I had to take a break before I wrote this. Unlike last week, it's for a good reason. I'm going to be honest, the first fifteen minutes of this episode...I thought I was going to hate it. But this might be the best episode of Riverdale in a long time. And I think it should be mentioned, this episode literally ends with a to be continued; so the ending of the episode isn't the ending at all. Far from it.

So, I'm going to do this a little bit differently. I'm not really going to go into the four stories Jughead wrote (rather I'm not going to spend time writing about what they were about). They're clearly going for a Tales From the Crypt Vibe (although John Water's seems to get mixed in by story three). I didn't like the first two stories. I thought the third was pretty good. And I loved the fourth one.

Riverdale finally did the classic Archie story. Betty and Veronica fight over Archie as he strings them along. Then, they see him with another woman. But do they let him sting them along like in the comics? Fuck no. They dug his coffee and cut him in two (and it is the best scene ever. Betty and Veronica are just so happy). And, yes, there is some misogynistic tones in this story (ok a lot and in three of the stories). This is something I will get to in a minute. Just...I've always hated the love triangle and, to me, this was the best way it could end. So, just let me have my happy moment.

So there are two things going on in this episode which, and I cannot express this enough, ends with a cliffhanger. The first is the very real history of comics in the 1950s; how they we're seen a threat to the "very decency" of the American way. That their stories are corrupting the youth; even though, as Jughead says, many of them were morality tales. But, even if they weren't, it's the age old story of blaming something for the issues in society instead of dealing with the issues of society (Or in this case, the psychologist says that comics are to blame for the death of Ethel's parents and they should be focusing on punishing the writers instead of, you know, actually finding the killer). And so, the psychologist is going to go on a crusade against the writers. And who's name is about to pop up on a list...well, one Mr. Jughead Jones. I wondered if he would end up in the Sister's and I have a feeling that may be the case. So, let's be clear, this episode touched on the whole Comics Code and the complicated history...but the point wasn't to deal with it in this episode; it's to set up for whatever happens to Jughead next. And, as strange as it is to write, I actually do have a feeling this might be the one topic Roberto may actually have a bit of knowledge on.

What the episode mostly focuses on, or the parts between the stories, is Jughead and Veronica. Veronica comes over and is hoping for a date with Jughead. However, she finds out he has a deadline to write four short stories. But, she's very supportive and asks him to tell her the stories. As he goes on, and as it becomes clear that he has used the people he knows in these stories, Veronica finds herself less enamored with him. She even points out that, the way he writes his female characters, is...gross. It is misogynistic. And so she leaves and that's the end of Jeronica. And, at first, it seems like we have another moment were we have the writers using the characters to call out the things that the fans have been complaining that the writers do (kind of like the Pussycat episode in season 5). Here's the thing...that's not completely inaccurate; but it's not what's completely happening here. When Jughead is confronted by Veronica about the way he has portrayed the people he knows as these...well, they're very unflattering views; Jughead gets defensive. He says their just stories. Later, Jughead tells his publisher that Veronica just didn't get his vision. And the thing is...this isn't new (well, the misogyny is new, but not the complaints). We have seen this since season 2. Jughead decides to use Toni's grandfather's story without his permission. He uses Betty's trauma as a way to keep a book contract. Apparently he really mischaracterizes the Serpents in his book (although we don't know exactly how). Hell, it can't be denied that Jessica might actually have stolen his story because she's afraid of what he's written (he does have a history). That fact is that Jughead Jones has never learned two things about writing. While it is true writers write what they know; good writers know not to mischaracterize their friends and, most importantly, good writers know that just because they are a part of a story, that doesn't automatically mean that it's their fucking story to tell. The writers have touched on this for years and never really dealt with it.

It seems like that writers are setting up for a really interesting juxtaposition here (if they can pull it off. Big if). On the one hand, we are dealing with this fascist belief that anything outside of what people considered the norm must be condemned and punished. On the other hand, we have a writer (Jughead) that doesn't understand that, while everyone should have the freedom to write without punishment, that doesn't mean that...how to put this, people have a right to be upset. Not everybody's going to like you write. And people have the right to be upset when you use them in an unfairly flattering light or use their story without their permission (or go off on tangents that make no fucking sense. Oh, and straight up lie). Now, whatever is about to happen to Jughead will far exceed what Jughead deserves (again, he doesn't deserve punishment; just needs someone to hit him with the brick of truth and tell him exactly how his writing has been hurting others). IF this is where there going (and IF they can pull this off...I really don't know if they can); this is an interesting debate. How do we make a society where writers are not punished for holding beliefs or writing things that others may considered outside the "norm," but still holding writers accountable for when their writings do harm others? And to what degree? (Because there's different levels of harm. There's what Jughead has done in the past and then there's JK Rowling). Look, the rest of the 1950s plots can jump off a cliff. But if the writers actually are dealing with censorship and Jughead's lack of self-censorship; I may not end up hating this season after all.

[infranuz]

HIII can I request a nami x fem reader where reader is meeting namis crew for the first time and they think reader is just a friend of namis until they see them be reaalllll close like hand holding, lots of hugs and maybe a kiss ;D

a/n — AAA MY FIRST NAMI REQUEST TYY <33 I love this imagine so much omg thank you for requesting this anon!! (Not proofread!!)

pairing — Nami x Fem!Reader meeting Nami’s crew for the first time and them finding out about Nami’s beautiful girlfriend!! <33

tw — implied sexual intercourse (just for one part)

After the straw hats saved yet another country they deserved a small vacation which lead to Nami picking out an island she knew well enough. It was hard to convince Luffy until she brought up the countries special dishes and deserts immediately sailing for the island after the captain gave the order.

Nami remembered she once had docked at that island for treasure reasons to which her surprise she ended finding something even more valuable than gold. Nami had found a woman like no other, she was extremely beautiful, she had a kind heart and was as strong as previous pirates she had encountered. At first Nami had decided to use her for her abilities but later she ended up saving her and realized it would be far too cruel to use such a kind hearted woman.

After some weeks spent there both grew closer to each other and ended up in the bed after having too many drinks. Both surprised with the outcome, they decided to start a relationship which no one knew about until that very day.

Nami seemed to be a rather “greedy” woman but needles to say she did have a heart deep inside, a heart for a very special person. Once they finally got to the island Nami immediately got off heading to the old restaurant that your family owned . Of course because so many years had passed since they last saw each other it was somewhat difficult to recognize how they looked.

“Hello ma’am I’m looking for a woman named Y/N, she works here.” Nami said looking at the woman in the reception. “Of course, hold on a moment please” she turned around and went to the back to call her lover. From the same way the woman left another lady came out heading straight to Nami. “Nami!! Is that really you?!” You shouted not caring about the others around her.

Nami immediately opened her arms to her girlfriend ready for the hug. Both had been waiting so long to meet each other again immediately embracing each other. “I’m so glad you’re okay!! After those two years without hearing about you made me worry” Nami smiled knowing how her lover cared so much for her. “I’m sorry I made you worry, but at least I’m here now..”

The couple decided to go out to their favorite spots to catch up before heading to the Sunny so the crew could meet her girlfriend. “I’m back” Nami shouted catching everyone’s attention. “I want you guys to meet someone” she announced with you behind her.

“Nami! Who is that behind you?” Chopper immediately asked after seeing you behind her. “This is Y/N, my-” Her sentence was cut off my Sanji’s typical shout. “NAMI-SWAANN” Sanji came running down.

“Sanji-kun!” Nami glared at the man returning her gaze to you . “Apologies Y/N, this is my crew” she continued “Luffy, Zoro, Usopp, Sanji-kun, Chopper, Robin, Franky and Brook” She finished pointing at the creepy living skeleton.

“Nice to meet you all! I thank you for taking care of Nami” you bowed as a sign of respect towards the crew. “Is there meat here?” Luffy asked out of the blue. You stared at him dumbfounded but laughed it off, “Of course! We have our special meat dish which I’m sure you’ll love” You smiled sweetly at him. “Follow me, I’ll show you at the restaurant” taking Namis hand you lead the way.

This didn’t go unnoticed by the crew specially Sanji to which he thought was rather weird but shrugged it off thinking it was something two friends would normally do. But oh boy was he not expecting the surprise coming his way. The crew enjoyed the meal served by you everyone complimenting your cooking skills. Another interaction that set the crews and Sanji’s suspicion out was when you were feeding Nami with your own fork like couples would normally do.

The others may have just found it as a friendly interaction but not Sanji. All the small interactions happening kept bothering Sanji. Not in a bad way, in a suspicious way. Until the final interaction would make everything clear, before setting off to another island Nami hugged you and pulled you in for a parting kiss which immediately shocked everyone. Both bid a goodbye and set off, meanwhile everyone stared at Nami “EHH?!” Was Luffy’s, Usopps,Brooks and Choppers reaction. Robin and Franky laughed it off already knowing while Zoro didn’t seem to care.

For the rest of the day Nami was questioned about her relationship with you. Of course they didn’t seem to understand (Luffy) but either way didn’t care because Nami was still Nami even if she loved you. Sanji was surprised the most, of course like the gentleman he is he respected your relationship, quite happy that Nami had someone that loved her and cared for her.

© zorosoup

[thequarries]

my Olldon first kiss fic pls enjoy ty

I suggest listening to "near death fail comp (must watch til end)" by Mom Jeans

Or literally any other sadish/emotional midwestern emo song!! Idc!! You do you!! This is your life!!

the last night of summer

Gordon hated the last nights of summer break.

There was no more daydreaming for hours on end without getting yelled at by an adult in their fifties. There was no more doodling faces whenever he was bored. And there was definitely no more hanging out with the Quarries all day. That part stung the most.

His friends were his escape from home. Their laughter drowned out the sound of his parents arguing, much like how the music from this stupid party drowned out his thoughts.

He pondered over his life so far as he sat on the floor of the hall, back leaning against the wall. Drunk teens toppled over eachother in the crowd, making Gordie more and more nervous about one of them stepping on his hands. He gripped the bottle he was holding, praying they wouldn’t come any closer to him. Gordie could have sworn one of them called him a fag, and laughed while pointing, but he was too drunk to tell. He didn't care anyways. The leader of the group led them to the living room.

As the crowd wandered away from the hall, he let his mind wander again.

Every time he just tried to think his thoughts, it would always lead him into a spiral.

It would always start with his art, and then his parents, and then Oliver Mehlberg.

Thinking about Oliver was the only good part of his spirals.

This was probably because Oliver was the only good part of his life, if you don’t consider the Quarries as a whole.

Ollie was probably the most perfect boy in the whole world.

His long blonde hair was like a big fluffy cloud, except that Gordie was able to touch it, and play with it whenever he wanted. His round glasses sat on his flawless nose, like a statue on a pedestal. All of his freckles were perfectly scattered, like someone delicately placed them there one by one, making constellations on his face. Whoever put them there must have taken days to do so.

“Hey, gayfuck,” For a moment, Gordie tensed up, preparing for someone he didn't know to be standing there, ready to throw punches at him.

Instead, it was Winnifred Florence and Murphy Drake staring at him, stupid grins spread across their faces.

“Are you drunk?” Murphy questioned, arms crossed across their chest. Gordie just shrugged in response, he had no idea how to answer a stupid question like that.

Winnie lightly jabbed Murphy in his ribcage with her elbow. He let out a small ‘ow’.

“More importantly, are you bored?” She inquired. Murphy shot her a look.

“I’ve got an even more important question,” A pause.

“Shoot it,” Gordie sighed. He was scared of what question was going to come out of his friend’s mouth. Another pause ensued. The sound of some cheesy pop song blasted into the hall.

“Do you want to kiss Mehly?”

Gordie had plenty of questions. Why would Murphy so bluntly ask that? Why did he want to know? And why did Gordie say yes?

Actually, the answer probably actually lied in the empty bottle in his hands.

The alchohol left him emotionally numb enough to admit his stupid secret, and next thing he knew, he was locked in a closet with Ollie, while Robbie, Winnie, and Murphy giggled from outside the door.

He tried his best to wiggle the door knob, but it wasn’t working. They had found a way to lock the door, leaving the pair stuck inside until they did what the three of them wanted.

“Guys, please just let us out,” He spoke through the crack of the door. No response except for the snickers of his friends.

“You look really pretty tonight,” Oliver spoke from behind Gordie. He swiftly turned around to face his friend, who was looking wide eyed and awestrucked at the taller boy, and was sitting on the floor, back leaned against the wall, much like how Gordie was in the hallway twenty minutes ago.

“And you look really handsome,” Gordie smiled. He went to sit next to his friend in the dark closet. He leaned his head on Ollie’s shoulder.

The pair had actually admitted their feelings for each other a couple of months ago, but never went any further than that. All they really did was flirt with eachother and become closer. It didn't matter to Gordie anyways.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, in the same position.

Oliver kept his eyes closed, as Gordie observed the angelic figure that was his friend, in awe at how someone could be so gorgeous.

The flashing lights from the party outside lit up the floor of the mostly empty closet, mesmerizing Gordie.

“They can’t just keep locking us up in closets and expect us to do something romantic, right?”

“Right.” Gordie agreed.

It was a pretty stupid and cliche idea his friends had.

To be fair, they all only had one collective braincell, so it made sense for them to be lacking in good ideas.

“When are they going to stop?” Oliver asked no one.

“When we finally kiss, probably.” Gordie chuckled. Oliver snorted.

“You’re probably right.” He replied, wrapping an arm around the shoulder of his friend. “I guess we’ll be stuck here forever, then.” Gordie softly laughed in response, but secretly, a pit dropped in his stomach. It felt like Oliver had just dropped a guillotine on him. He swallowed, preparing himself for his next question.

“So… you don't want to kiss me?” He asked, as innocently as possible.

“And you do?” Oliver sat up a bit, Gordie doing the same.

“I mean… yeah, I guess so.”

“Good, because I do too.”

Blood rushed to Gordie’s ears and cheeks, turning them red. He wasn’t expecting that.

The two stood up, facing eachother, still bathed in darkness. It was like a warm blanket keeping them safe. Gordie enjoyed sharing it with Oliver. It reminded him of how much he wanted to wake up next to him every day for the rest of his life. That was part of his ideal world, one that he was scared he was never going to live to see.

That’s the struggle of living in a small town like this.

Tears began to well in Gordie’s eyes as he thought of the prospect of never getting to live out his perfect life with Oliver. He hated it.

He was snapped out of his trance as he felt a warm hand touch his jawline. He blinked, a tear streaming down his face.

Wide eyed, Gordie started back at the shorter boy. Overcome with his dumb emotions, he wrapped his arms around Oliver, forcing his friend to drop his hands to his sides.

“Jesus, Goosey, I’m not going anywhere!” Oliver yelped.

“You better not,” The taller of the two boys laughed slightly, tears still streaming down his face. “I don’t want to lose you,”

“Gosh, you’re so emotional.” Oliver snorted, concern twisted onto his face. “Why don’t you just kiss me already?” Gordie unwrapped his arms from his friend, staring him up and down.

“Ar-are you sure?” He asked, his heart beating faster, and his palms sweating. Oliver rolled his eyes.

“No. I want you to just walk out of here and forget about me,” He spoke, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

“I mean, the door is locked already, so I don’t think I can just walk out of here,”

“No duh, Goosey, I think that’s the point,” Oliver chuckled a bit. “Now shut up and gimme those boy lips,” He brushed his hand against the taller boy’s blotchy skin, running his fingers up to his messy hair, ruffling it as he leaned in, pecking him on his pointy nose. He let his eyes wander down to Gordie’s lips, before cupping Gordie’s face in his hands and going in for the kiss.

Gordie instinctively moved his hands down to his friend’s waste.

Friend? Stranger? Lover? It didn't matter anymore. All that mattered in the moment was that Gordie was kissing Oliver Mehlberg, like there was nothing else in the world.

He felt Oliver’s hands and fingers tangled in his hair, messing up the hours of work he spent to make it look nice for the party he didn't care about anyways.

Oliver pulled away for a moment to smile, looking away from Gordie, and towards the door. He was biting his lip as if it would stop the red tint from colouring his entire face.

“Are you embarrassed or something?” Gordie raised a brow.

“N-no!” Oliver faced back to the other boy, eyes as wide as saucers. “I-it’s just hard to believe I’m kissing you. Gordie Ayres,”

“I would be too,” Gordie joked.

“Oh, shut up!” Oliver snorted, playfully shoving Gordie.

“Make me.”

“Fine!” Oliver continued what he was doing a minute ago, which was kissing his best friend, of course. The pair tried their best to ignore the ‘Oh my god I think they’re actually doing it,’s and ‘should we let them out now?’s coming from outside the closet.

The irony of the situation finally came to Gordie’s attention. Of course his first kiss with a boy would be in a closet. Where else would it be? In an open field in front of thousands of people? No fucking way. The last thing he needed was rumours about him being queer going around on the first day of school.

Out of nowhere, there was the sound of someone banging their fist on the door.

“ARE YOU TWO ALMOST DONE IN THERE?”

“Robbie!!” Someone scolded. From the sounds of it, it was Winnie that was fed up with Robbie, while Murphy laughed their ass off.

“Damn, I’m just asking!”

Oliver and Gordie had stopped what they were doing to listen to their friends bicker. They shrugged it off and turned to look at eachother, before giving one last kiss.

After finally being let out of the closet, the pair had made their way onto the roof of the house. The sound of party music was still blasting, and could be heard from outside. The noises from the crickets chirping let them feel at ease, and warm summer air, leaving them feeling sleepy, was matched with the cool breeze.

“Oliver?” Gordie asked, breaking the silence.

“What’s up, Goosey?”

“Do you... Do you really like me?”

“No, Goose, I hate you and I wish you never walked into my life.” Oliver rolled his eyes. Gordie let out a small ‘hm’.

“So, do you love me, then?” Gordie was simply curious. He needed to know.

“Yes.” Oliver said firmly, with a slight nod of the head. It was clear he was sure of his answer, and that nothing was going to change it.

Wow

Gordie thought to himself.

Maybe the last nights of summer vacations aren’t that bad, after all.

[jeannereames]

Hi Dr. Reames, I’ve become unsure about what to believe when reading about Alexander with all the various interpretations of him and how he’s been presented in literature. The first thing I ever read featuring him was Renault’s trilogy. So, maybe a little naively, for a while I believed he was very compassionate and obsessed with friendship now I’m not quite so sure. For example, was he actually upset when Darius’s wife died or did one of the historians make that up? Thanks!

Alexander the Invincible & Clemency (not Compassion)

Many years ago now, in the forward to a new translation of Ulrich Wilcken’s biography, Alexander the Great, my academic father, Eugene N. Borza, wrote, "It is enough to say that there are many Alexanders, perhaps as many as there are those who profess a serious interest in him."

That quote perfectly summarizes the problem with determining what Alexander was like.

The disagreement goes back even into our original sources (those still surviving and those lost), that reflect differences in opinion. Was Alexander a good person, a bad person, a tyrannical megalomaniac, a vicious invader, a valorous fighter, a noble world civilizer….?

All those opinions were held by people in his own day.

(Much like, if you walked out into your local town square and started polling people on what they thought of Joe Biden, or Donald Trump, you’d get a wide variety of replies.)

To complicate matters, Alexander was masterful at marketing himself by the heroic ideals of his day, literally staging his own actions. Today, we’d call that propaganda, but we live in a more cynical age, one that assumes the use of propaganda implies self-serving purposes with no belief in the message conveyed…which is absolutely wrong in Alexander’s case. The guy BELIEVED his own hype and apparently tried to live up to it.

I find it interesting that even his ancient detractors never really accuse him of cowardice in battle or not leading the charge. He earned all his wounds. That said, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to ask if we ought to be glorifying that sort of all-out battle. Nonetheless, from the ancient point of view, they saw nothing wrong with it, and viewed actively seeking out war as a noble aspiration.

Alexander could be absolutely brutal. Ask Thebes. Ask Tyre. Ask most of the Indian nations along the Indus River or the Baktrians and Sogdians, or any of a thousand other villages and people who he sometimes attacked just because he could—he wanted another “win.” Even in Arrian’s rather positive history, he sometimes just does shit to do it.

In one case, Arrian (3.24.1-3) mentions that he was successful against a group of mountainous people (Mardians) who didn’t expect him to attack them because 1) nobody had in ages due to where they lived (difficult terrain), and 2) he’d already gone past them. But no, dude doubles back to attack them anyway. WHY? I mean, really? They don’t seem to have attacked his army until he started killing them. Some resisted, most fled, and he chased them and didn’t stop until they surrendered.

“Invincible” is very much part of Alexander’s own image creation. Alexandros Aniketos! (Unconquered*) You can’t say “no” to him, or it means you “beat” him.

Yet part of the expectation for heroic kings and commanders included clemency.

While rage might drive a warrior, the best battles didn’t involve rage, but a “pure” contest of men to prove their aretē, or personal excellence. That helps to explain Alexander’s response to Poros. Poros was protecting his kingdom, Alexander invaded it. Alexander won, Poros surrendered and faced Alexander after, asking to be treated as a king…. It wasn’t personal. Alexander wasn’t angry with Poros. (And we know he could get mad at the drop of a hat.)

But that “encounter” ticked all the heroic boxes, so after the battle, Alexander extended clemency.

Clemency isn’t quite the same as compassion. Compassion is more wide-ranging. It can be offered by anyone, to anyone, e.g., a slave can show compassion to his or her owner just the same as the reverse.

But clemency has a distinct “top-down” aspect. One can only offer clemency to those in one’s power—as Alexander offered to Porus after the Battle of the Hydaspes. Or as he showed to Darius’s family. Or to Timokleia after the razing of Thebes.

Chivalrous Alexander is a thread throughout the sources, a tradition Renault picked up on. I’m of mixed mind as to how much of it’s true. Some of my colleagues think it entirely fictional, a product of later literary traditions intent on using Alexander as a moral model, the “Philosopher in Armor.” The problem with seeing it entirely as literary is that Alexander himself cast himself in heroic models. So where do we draw the line between later literary invention vs. Alexander’s own conscious self-presentation? That’s the problem. (This is addressed in a recent, very good collection of papers in The Legitimization of Conquest: Monarchial Representation and the Art of Government in the Empire of Alexander the Great, eds., Kai Trampedach and Alexander Meeus. Good stuff in there if you can get the book via ILL.)

Anyway, Alexander certainly wanted to be seen as clement. We witness it over and over. If you surrender to him, he’s generous in return…because you acknowledged that he’s above you/better than you. Arrian states it bluntly, “[Mousikanos] acknowledged that he had done wong, which was actually the surest way, where Alexander was concerned, for anyone to obtain what he wanted” (6.15.6). But if you’re a hill tribe who just wants to be left alone? Oh, hell no! He’ll come after you and keep coming until you surrender. Then…he’s fine. (As long as you didn’t do anything too terrible leading up to the surrender and, especially, if he’s in a hurry to be somewhere else.)

This is sometimes presented as if he’s a three-year-old who can’t stand to be told, “No,” because he’s a spoiled brat.

I think this misunderstands, or at least filters ancient attitudes through modern perceptions. We can understand what Alexander was doing without necessarily approving of it. As I noted above, the ancient mindset glorified invasion, conquest, and war “just because” for fame. I most certainly do not approve, but I recognize that if one is raised with that as a valid, admirable goal, moderns critiquing that individual for holding a common cultural view is a bit petty, or at least silly. “Grow up, Alexander, and think like a 21st century man!”

Similarly here. Alexander emulates Herakles, and must be even more invincible (aniketos). If you challenge that, you have challenged something very deep and fundamental to his understanding of himself. Yet he also can’t stand it if somebody loses TO him: that makes his victory hollow. This is why he fights Poros…and then honors him by returning his kingdom and a bunch more besides. Poros tried to win, but failed. That made Alexander’s victory (nike) honest. Poros then did the honorable thing and asked for clemency without surrendering his honor (“Treat me like a king”). That made him Alexander’s new BFF.

Why should Alexander get to be The Best? He’s royal, descendent of gods (and heroes). That’s why he constantly pits himself against Herakles (NOT Achilles, drop-kick that popular mirage please). Herakles is the epitome of Greek heroes. So Alexander is truly the “bestest” if he’s even better than Herakles.

So anyway, to answer the last question about whether Alexander truly mourned for Darius’s wife, I expect he did. It would fit with the public image he wanted to present.

But that sure didn’t stop him from getting her pregnant in the first place with the child that killed her in its delivery. He may have been lamenting the death of the child as much as the death of his mistress. (For more on this, see my prior response to an ask about Statiera’s pregnancy.)

—————-

*a-nike-tos…think about shoes. Ha. Nikē = victory: a-nike-tos…one who is un-victoried-over, e.g., undefeated.

[daydreamstew]

(did I sent you one already? who cares yolo) brio + 58

thank you, paloma!! 💕🥰 look at you trying to get me to write angst! HA! enjoy my first ever college au instead 🤪

58. “I made a mistake.”

“I made a mistake,” Beth blurts out as soon as the door to Rio’s room swings open.

Her pleading eyes meet his sleep-bleary ones, blinking from the fluorescent lights of their rundown dorm hallway. He must’ve still been sleeping.

That’s when she glances down, eyes going wide when she realizes that the only thing he’s wearing is basketball shorts, sitting low on his hips revealing that v muscle thing and a happy trail leading to, well, a morning wood situation even though it’s the afternoon.

Her gaze darts back up to Rio, now sporting a smug grin and raised eyebrows, but she just squares her shoulders in spite of the flush she can feel blotting her cheeks.

“Yeah, what’d you do?” he asks, eyes dipping down to look her over like always.

“I forgot to bring my key with me when I left for class and the door locked behind me and now I’m locked out and my notes for my comp gov exam are in there and I can’t study without them and I need an A on it to bump my grade up,” she explains in one breath, eyes wide.

Rio shifts to lean against his door frame, his muscles rippling from the movement and she has to stop herself from staring for too long because she cannot be looking at him, another fellow RA, like that. That’s how she got into this mess in the first place.

“Yeah, see this is why you should just type your notes like the rest of us, darlin’,” he responds, wagging his pointer finger at her.

“I-,” she starts, before stopping to take a deep breath to calm herself.

God, it’s just like Rio to try to push her buttons like this. It’s almost like he enjoys it.

“Studies show that you learn more when you physically write down the information, Rio,” she replies, voice sickly sweet.

He hums out a noise, chest rumbling and, shit, her eyes glance down again.

Pull it together, Marks!

“Aight so you need your notes. Why can’t you just ask your boyfriend for the spare key to your room? Ain’t he working in the office right now?” he asks.

Her eyes glance down to the stained carpet, avoiding looking at him. Because, yes, Dean is the one scheduled to be in the RA office right now. She knows his work schedule like the back of her hand. But-

“We actually broke up,” she breathes out, feigning being casual.

But it’s not casual. Not at all. Because Dean had-

Well, he’d cheated on her with Amber from back home, who is still a senior in high school. Which—ew. And she can barely handle looking at him, but she has to anyway because they’re both RA’s for the same dorm complex and he has seniority over her since he’s a senior and she just can’t ask him for a favor right now. Can’t fathom using the word please to the guy that has made her feel so worthless.

But she doesn’t say all that to Rio because as much as they’re friends, as much as they enjoy talking shit and studying together in the lounge, as much as they’ve bonded over their Detroit upbringings and other more serious stuff—like them both losing a parent young and the responsibilities they have back home—she doesn’t want him to know the details of this.

Because, even though she knows it’s not her fault, she still feels this aching feeling of shame every time she thinks about it. And she’s terrified that the knowledge may change the way Rio looks at her. Like he may look at her and see what she sees right now. A girl that wasn’t enough.

“Oh yeah? What’d that asshole do now?” he asks, voice dripping with disdain.

He’s always hated Dean. She could always see a spark of something in Rio’s eyes whenever Dean fucked up.

She clears her throat, eyes looking everywhere but him.

“It’s nothing, okay? We’re done and I don’t really want to ask him for anything right now,” she says with a shrug.

“Elizabeth,” Rio says, voice now serious.

She’s not sure why she came to him. She has other RA friends she could’ve asked that would’ve made this less difficult. She would’ve explained that she and Dean broke up and they would’ve given her a look of pity and an I’m so sorry and moved on.

It’s just that as much as he gives her shit, he really is always there for her. He’s the one that got one of his sketchy friends to scare off that guy that wouldn’t stop harassing her and texting her. He’s the one that stayed up helping her work through her calculus practice exam during midterms while Dean went to Logan’s party. He’s the one that held her when she broke down in tears from stress over classes and work and Annie struggling in high school.

“Please just help me with this okay? I need to get my notes or else I’m gonna fail and then the next thing you know I’ll be dropping out and moving home and then who are you gonna pick on all the time? You’re gonna have to start teasing Jeremy or something,” she rushes out.

He sighs out a reluctant laugh and nods.

“Nah can’t be having that. That kid’s weird as fuck,” he jokes.

She smiles at him softly and he rolls his eyes.

“Okay so what do you need me to do?” he asks.

“All I need is for you to sneak into the drawer on the bottom right that holds the keys while I distract him,” she explains.

“Yeah and how you gonna do that?” he questions, eyebrows raised.

She looks down and reaches into her tank top to readjust her boobs for optimal cleavage before straightening her posture and beaming at him with a smug smile.

His grin is crooked and his eyes are glazing over as he eyes the trap she just set. When his perusal lasts longer than usual and he bites at his lip, eyes still on her chest, she smacks at his arm.

“Hey!” she exclaims, but she’s smiling.

He throws his head back in laughter.

“Yeah, that fool ain’t gonna know what hit him,” Rio replies, shaking his head.

She giggles.

“Aight lemme just put a hoodie on,” Rio says, slipping into his room.

She follows and smiles when she sees his normally perfectly made bed rumpled from his sleep.

He’s throwing on some shoes and grabbing his keys, looking like he’s just about ready to leave when she stops him, grabbing his wrist.

“Wait,” she starts.

“What?” he asks.

“Your..situation,” she mutters out, eyes glancing down to his groin. “Aren’t you gonna...take care of it?”

She can’t bring herself to be more specific. She thinks she may simply combust if he makes her spell it out.

He licks at his lips and looks down at his erection, still holding strong.

“Why? You don’t want Deansie to think we were in the middle of something?”

She laughs nervously.

“No,” she insists.

“Okay then you wanna help me take care of it?” he teases.

And he’s joking, but she can’t help the warmth she feels in her gut at even the thought of touching Rio like that.

“No thanks,” she squeaks out.

“Mm so polite,” he rasps, eyes dark.  

He hesitates before asking almost tentatively, “Maybe next time?”

His eyes dart to her lips briefly before returning to her gaze.

And, god, what’s wrong with her? She just broke up with Dean and her and Rio are friends. Good ones. And she doesn’t want to risk losing someone else.

But she can’t help herself from biting at her lip and saying, “Yeah. Maybe next time.”

His mouth parts slightly and he’s breathing heavier and she is too.

Something about the way they’re looking at each other is changing by the second, their vision clearing without a Dean-sized obstacle blocking the way. Revealing to her a possibility she hadn’t even fully considered.

She glances down to his lips and suddenly she’s thinking about how he could take care of her, so she clears her throat and takes a couple of steps away from him before she does something stupid like kiss him.

“How ‘bout we watch something for a minute? While it, uh, takes care of itself?” he suggests, gently mocking her prudeness.

As she climbs into his just slept-in sheets, she realizes that despite having watched hundreds of hours of tv together, they’ve never done it in his bed. They usually do it in the lounge, but they may have to switch this to their usual spot. It smells far better.

And if as they settle in for an episode of New Girl they’ve seen a dozen times, she shifts closer until she’s pressed into his side, and if he tentatively wraps his arm around her shoulder like they’re two fifteen-year-olds on their first date, and if she wordlessly hits play on the next episode so he doesn’t stop playing with her hair, then so be it.

The notes can wait. It’s still early. They have time. She’s good where they are right now—an “enough” with someone who looks at her like she’s more than.