#this is one thing in an otherwise entertaining episode i got really hung up on

[the-lady-general]

Strange New World's Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Warhammer 40,000, the musical [audio not found].

This is from a lovely and very, very thinky Discord conversation. Thank you, guys! There's more thoughts I need to get out of my head, specifically because I've hit my personal limit of what I think the Federation can get away with as a utopia, and also because I didn't want to bore a server full of trekkies with my 40k thoughts.

TLDR: I've often said that when the fridge logic hits, ENT becomes better than what the writers intended. I think SNW has the opposite problem: When the fridge logic hits, it hits me with a spiky baseball bat. Everything I didn't like is under the cut, don't go there if you want to avoid it.

Here's the intro to the Eisenhorn omnibus, the oldest Black Library book I could reach on my shelf. I'll quickly transcribe the parts I've highlighted, explain what I love about it, and then I'll get right back to what it has to do with Strange New Worlds.

===

"For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. [...] He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die. [...] But for all their multitudes, [the vast armies of the Imperium] are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants -- and worse. To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. [...] Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war."

===

Fun Fact: This is where "grimdark" in speculative fiction comes from! Thanks, The General Situation of Northern England in the mid-80s!

So, it all starts with a soul-eating machine. The soul-eating machine kills ~ 1,000 people per day. It is the only way in which humans get to go faster than light, because the not-quite-corpse and soul-eating machine arrangement is basically a lighthouse for hyperspace.

The Imperium is living in the shadow of a great, bright, and optimistic past. It came out of an advanced civilisation that had gone through many destructive wars on Earth. The Emperor was a man of science and reason and wanted humanity to live in prosperity, unhindered by wars or prejudice. He abolished religion in favour of humanism. He wanted to build a utopia for all mankind. Absolute dogshit parent though.

Ultimately, he built the soul-eating machine to justify the utopia, and when he wasn't in a position to object, his successors strapped him in and slapped the go button. Utopia postponed, blame those damn heretics/mutants/aliens.

That was the decision that led to the grim dark future without escape. Do you dare *not* fed the soul-eating machine? Do you dare unplug the not-quite-corpse? It's how it has always been. It could be worse. It's every single wrong one human could possibly inflict on another for everyone, for ever. It could be worse. It'll never get better. It steadily gets worse. It could be worse. It's always two minutes to midnight and no sacrifice ever stopped the clock from ticking. It could be so much worse without the soul-eating machine.

It is unbearably bad.

By contrast, here is an excerpt from the Charter of the United Federation of Planets, as seen on Voyager (or Memory Alpha in my case):

===

"We the lifeforms of the United Federation of Planets determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, and to reaffirm faith in the fundamental rights of sentient beings, in the dignity and worth of all lifeforms, in the equal rights of members of planetary systems large and small, …"

===

So Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow had a Starfleet security officer who was ready to sacrifice her career only two episodes ago in order to reunite a little girl with her parents. She goes back in time to stop an unknown event that leads to the destruction of Earth. She is confronted with baby Hitler who lives in a vague yet menacing government(?) bunker in Toronto and tells him he is *exactly* where he needs to be.

*record scratch* Sorry. That was a bit flippant. So again, from the top:

La'an travels back in time, with Sam Kirk's brother from a different timeline. She is reluctant to open up to him because of her family trauma (separate & discrete from her childhood trauma), but notorious charmer James T. Kirk (from the USS Iowa, not to be confused with James T. Kirk from Iowa, US) helps her out of her shell. They realise that someone is trying to prevent the Eugenics Wars, having already successfully delayed them until 2023. Deciding that the Eugenics Wars were the one and only factor that led to the United Federation of Planets, La'an and Kirk then decide that they must make sure the Eugenics Wars happen at any cost.

(They do not know that the one and only factor leading to the formation of the United Federation of Planets were the Vulcans witnessing humanity's first FTL flight, nor that Zefram Cochrane was motivated by greed to build the warp 1 engine.)

They find Khan Noonien-Singh in the secret Toronto bunker of the Noonien-Singh Institute, a vague yet menacing organisition with unspecified goals. Khan expects La'an to kill him, but instead she hugs him, tells him he is exactly where he needs to be and leaves him alone in his bunker slash prison question mark.

*record scratch* I mean, La'an goes through quite some emotional distress once she realises that the fate of humanity and all Federation members rests on her shoulders, and that restoring the Iowa, US timeline means killing Kirk from the USS Iowa timeline (and, presumably, everyone else from that timeline, but we're not worried about them).

(They're not aware that there is already an alternate timeline in which James T. Kirk was born on a spaceship that is happily co-existing with the Iowa, US timeline).

La'an is even further distressed when she is faced with the choice of killing Khan and preventing the Eugenics Wars and WWIII, but realises that she can absolutely not kill an innocent child. She tells the innocent child he is exactly where he is supposed to be before leaving him with a loaded gun in a top secret, vague yet menacing bunker in a room that would be declared unfit as a human habitat BY THE UK because it doesn't even have a window.

*record scratch* I mean, La'an saves baby Hitler, gives him a weapon and a justification for starting the bloodiest and most destructive wars in Earth history, and she is expressly forbidden from seeing a counsellor about this at the end of the episode.

*record scratch* I mean, a Starfleet security officer leaves seven children too young to make their own healthcare decisions to be genetically manipulated by a vague yet menacing government(?) organisation. The fact that this is to bring about the bloodiest wars in Earth history makes this better, somehow.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow says that the only way in which the United Federation of Planets can exist is by soul-eating machine. It postulates that suffering must act as the catalyst for the utopia. I find that horrifying. I already found it horrifying when Gerne it.

But this is the second time SNW has strapped a child into the soul-eating machine. Except this time, were strapping *seven* children into the soul-eating machine, and we're not even asking them for consent, let alone informed consent.

This is framed as utterly vital.

It is unbearably bad.

If the Federation can *only* exist if its defenders are ready (if unwilling) to feed children into the soul-eating machine, then it cannot be worth it. If the condition for utopia is the suffering and deaths of millions it *cannot* be worth it. It'll endlessly retread what it has always done, it'll swing from one sacrifice to the next, it'll keep shifting who constitues an acceptable sacrifice, and 10,000 years down the line they'll look at their not-quite-corpse steering a soul-eating machine and wonder where it all went wrong.

The Federation is about the dignity and worth of all sentient life. Everything else must be in service to that.

Don't we already live in a utopian world that builds it's utopia for a few billionaires on the suffering of the many? Does the story about the post-scarcity utopia really have to haggle the ratio in favour of the many instead of going balls to the wall UTOPIA FOR EVERYONE YES EVEN THOSE PEOPLE? Star Trek is the setting that *should* save everybody! Even those people!

Fuck the soul-eating Federation. It's dignity and respect for ALL life or it's self-righteous garbage.

[murasaki-murasame]

Thoughts on Higurashi Sotsu Ep14

Do you ever wanna just watch two little girls who are actually 100+ year old witches beat the absolute SHIT out of each other for 20 minutes straight? :)

Anyway, thoughts under the cut. Plus Umineko spoilers.

Part of this might just be because I’ve been high on painkillers for a few weeks now [long story short, I’ve got a lot of dental work that needs done], but this is perhaps the most entertaining episode of anime I’ve seen all year, lol. Not even in a jokey ironic ‘so bad it’s good’ way.

I feel like this is going to be the most polarizing episode of this whole show, because for better or worse it really crosses the line between Higurashi and Umineko, so whether or not you’re a fan of that whole trajectory the story’s been taking will really change how you feel about this.

Though to be honest I think on one level people are ignoring how Higurashi has always had a lot of these things in it. For one thing, the concept of the fragment space and ‘game boards’ has been a thing since Minagoroshi, and we’ve always had stuff like Hanyuu being a literal god who can manifest in the real world, and the existence of the mythical sword was hinted at in Matsuribayashi and then expanded upon in Kotohogushi. This episode also directly referenced the over the top rooftop fight scene from Tsumihoroboshi, which was just the start of Higurashi having lots of fun and silly fight scenes, like the fights between the club members and the military in Matsuribayashi, or the whole fighting game spin-off arc thing. Even in the VN there was an intentional shift from horror and mystery to high-octane fight scenes fueled by the power of friendship and miracles.

Obviously on the other hand there’s definite Umineko stuff going on here, but in general this feels like a pretty natural progression for this series to take.

Anyway, this was absolutely worth the wait, and it goes a long way toward making up for how bad the pacing in Sotsu has been thus far, lol. I still think they could have cut this down by at least two or three episodes, but still. As a climax to this whole conflict between Rika and Satoko, it was really cool.

Sort of like how Nekodamashi had it’s rollercoaster death montage, I really loved how this whole episode transitioned between fragments in increasingly seamless and surreal ways. The use of transition cuts between scenes was honestly really cool, and made it way more dynamic and engaging than it otherwise would have been to basically have an entire episode spent on one fight scene.

I think a lot of people are hung up on the exact logistics of how the fragment-hopping worked in this episode, but I don’t really think you should read into it too much. It basically operated on dream logic and heightened emotions. In the first few fragments Satoko might have waited a bit before attacking Rika, but it very quickly became one continuous sequence of events for all intents and purposes, with how their back and forth dialogue and their exact movements transitioned from one fragment to the next.

Basically it ended up becoming a fight between voyager witches who have become totally divorced from reality and just hop from one fragment to the next whenever they please.

I was wondering how they’d follow up on the gun scene, since it created this stalemate where they both know what’s going on and thus have no reason to surrender, but I really like how they decided to take this. I know a lot of people have been wanting more of a drawn out battle of wits between them, but the whole concept of them just getting into an endless fight with each other now that everything’s out in the open is extremely entertaining to watch.

It does make me even more convinced that it was a bad idea to have Nekodamashi happen in Gou, though. The immediate resolution to the cliffhanger was more anti-climactic than most people would have wanted after so much time spent leading back up to it, and the whole tone and pacing of Nekodamashi would have flowed very seamlessly into this. It also would have fixed the issue of the last two episodes being almost entirely recaps if this was instead the first time that we saw the Nekodamashi loops.

Anyway, there’s been a lot of debate about whether or not we might get a third season or some other kind of continuation to this, and I think this episode makes me way more convinced that it’s actually just going to end here, whether people like it or not. I think I’ve already said that there’s literally nothing the story needs to do anymore except have Rika and Satoko hash things out with each other, and that’s exactly what they’re focusing on now. Maybe they could spend time recapping Satokowashi, but that’d be extremely pointless. And at this point it’s pretty clear that one way or another the other club members just aren’t going to be very important to this story. There’s a bit of a loose end with their teenage selves showing up in the OP with new outfits, but that might be as simple as an epilogue scene set back in the Matsuribayashi fragment or something, and them looking ominous might be a red herring.

Also, in a more meta sense, there’s certain stuff the staff are doing and saying that make this seem like the finale of the whole series, like how in a couple months they’re going to release a congratulatory book compiling all the official artwork and interviews for Gou/Sotsu, or how they recently released a compilation CD of all of Ayane’s Higurashi-related songs, or how [I think] the artist for the Gou manga said on Twitter that the new chapter that just came out will be the last one to come out while the anime’s airing. We’re also getting two new Higurashi manga arcs starting soon, along with the reveal that the Gou manga will diverge from the anime and go into a new answer arc called Higurashi Jun.

So in general it just comes across like everything’s being wrapped up with Sotsu. I can see why people would be disappointed if we don’t get more, but with how the story’s been going, there’s just not really much material left to work with. Also, we know from TV listings that there at least won’t be a direct continuation in the next season, so if we get anything more it wouldn’t happen until January at earliest, and at this point I’d rather things just wrap up here instead of having to wait even longer to get the actual ending, lol.

I guess we won’t know how things will end until next week, but we really seem to be barrelling headfirst into this being Bern and Lambda’s origin story. Which has been pretty obvious for ages now, but this episode in particular really cements it. This whole fight is really similar to the one they have in Episode 8, and you can see throughout the episode how they’re embracing their looper/witch personas and becoming divorced from reality. You can even see the foundation for how Bern and Lambda have a twisted love for each other based on the fact that they’re basically the only people who can actually understand each other, and they’re so detached from reality that the violence between them is more like a sign of affection.

I feel like this is also going to end up tying into the miracle that Hanyuu is waiting for. At the moment we’re in a situation where it seems like they’re stuck in an infinite stalemate because they’re in a fight where neither of them wants to lose, but neither of them wants to win if it means permanently killing the other. So it seems like there might not really be any way out of this, but if they’re able to truly forgive each other and embrace their identities as witches, then they can basically step away from this entire conflict and just enjoy being with each other. It seems impossible for this to end with either of them ‘winning’ and things going back to how they used to be, so it could certainly be called a miracle if they both decide that they’re OK with that, and they take a third option where they can both be happy in a way that neither of them would have predicted at first.

This could also lead to a situation where Rika is able to ascend to a higher level by letting go of her human side once and for all, which could give her the ability to appear in the part of the fragment space where Eua and Hanyuu are, so she can save Hanyuu from getting killed by Eua’s spear.

And on that note, the whole bit with Hanyuu at the end actually reminds me a lot of the idea of logic errors in Umineko. I think people kinda over-use that term when it comes to stuff in this series where it doesn’t really fit, but that scene was actually extremely similar to the whole set-up where Battler got stuck in a locked room that he couldn’t come up with an answer to get out of, and he had to wait for the ‘miracle’ of Beatrice awakening so that Kanon could arrive and save him. Hanyuu is in a position where she’s already committed to flying straight at Eua, but the spear is right in front of her face and about to kill her once time starts again, and she has to wait for a ‘miracle’ to happen to change her fate. Which is also a lot like how in Matsuribayashi she almost got shot by Takano, but a miracle happened and Rika was able to divert the bullet. So it’d make a lot of sense in general if in the next episode we see Rika show up there and save Hanyuu.

And considering how Featherine acts in Umineko, I could honestly see Eua sticking to her word and rewarding Hanyuu if a miracle like that actually happens and saves her. So even if it’s anti-climactic, this might end with Eua accepting her loss and backing off, and maybe not even doing anything to punish Satoko for losing in her fight against Rika. Which is part of why I think the whole lingering threat of the ‘world without Rika’ might not even lead to anything and might just be a vague threat towards Satoko that never materializes.

Other than that, I think the last episode will probably also involve us going back to Matsuribayashi and seeing what sort of ending Rika and Satoko’s ‘human selves’ get once their ‘witch selves’ leave them behind once and for all. Which will probably just be along the lines of Rika going to the Saiguden to check up on Satoko, and them heading over to the cafe where the other club members [and probably Satoshi as well] are waiting for them, and it’ll just end on the note of them presumably working things out between each other peacefully.

Along those same lines, I think that the whole story of Gou/Sotsu will also get somewhat recontextualized as being a sort of deranged power fantasy that Satoko came up with in her head while visiting the Saiguden. I don’t think that’d be intended to devalue anything that happened here, but it’d be like how Umineko presents enough narrative framework for a non-magical interpretation of everything, while at the same time still acknowledging the value of the magical interpretation.

While I remember, I’m curious to see how the manga version turns out, since it’s clearly diverging a fair bit from the anime. It might just be an alternate take on the story concept, but at this point I think it might be presented as an ‘earlier loop’ of Gou/Sotsu, with how it’s been implied that Eua and Satoko have met before without Satoko remembering it. So maybe this whole series of events has repeated over and over again, presumably with Satoko ‘losing’ each time so things get reset, and Gou/Sotsu is the final iteration of that loop where they’re finally able to achieve a miracle.

I feel like the manga version is probably gonna end up being closer to what people wanted out of Sotsu, since it seems to be going in the direction of Rika knowing everything without Satoko knowing that, so they can have more of a drawn out conflict between each other as Rika tries to figure out how to win. Which is one way to take the story, but I still like how the anime ended up doing it, even if it could have been paced a lot better. I also think that the manga isn’t exactly a straight improvement over the anime anyway. There’s stuff it does well, but there’s stuff it doesn’t do well, like how the whole Nekodamashi arc feels extremely weird in the context of Rika not remembering her deaths [or at least not being given a clear reason for why she can suddenly remember them], her not deciding to go for five more loops before killing herself, and Satoko apparently not having any idea about Rika remembering her deaths, which seems to defeat the point of Nekodamashi’s rapid-fire death loops.

Either way I’m curious to see how Jun goes. I assume that we’ll still get some version of Satokowashi out of it, but I think that unlike with Sotsu they’ll spend much less time on answering the damashi arcs, and I also think at this point that the answers to them won’t be exactly the same as they were in the anime either.

Also, we recently found out that two entirely new Higurashi manga arcs will start in November, called Oniokoshi and Hoshiwatashi, which seem to be collectively referred to as Higurashi Rei, using the kanji from ‘the Reiwa era’, since it seems like the idea of these new arcs is that they take place in the Reiwa era. Oniokoshi seems to be about Keiichi’s son and a new mysterious character, while Hoshiwatashi seems to be about two entirely new characters, so I’m really curious to see how their stories pan out. I’m particularly excited about Oniokoshi since it’s being drawn by Natsumi Kei, who’s basically the primary artist for the Umineko manga, so that kinda makes me biased towards it, lol. And even though there’s basically nothing to go off of except for one preview image, it looks like it might go in a bit of a gay direction, which would be really neat. But we’ll see how it goes.

So yeah, I guess at this point with where things are going I’m gonna be really disappointed if we don’t get something like an Umineko remake after this, lol. It wouldn’t be very satisfying if it just ends on the note of ‘go and read the Umineko VN’ or something.

[gifted-burnout-archive]

Jim’s Best Friend

Part Fourteen - There’s a Hole in the Wall

Word Count: 2714

Author’s Note: So I wrote all this, and then remembered that during this episode Dwight was working at Staples... So, variation on the story! Dwight never quit. Ok, with that settled, enjoy! (And did I make all you readers a lil gay? Yeah, I fucking did. Enjoy it. In this reality, you like girls and Jim Halpert and good for you!)

WARNING: angry Andy, discussion of sexual orientation (?), kinda cheating...

April, 2007.

The last few weeks had been crazy, and you hadn't really had a second to catch your breath. Between moving into a new flat and adjusting to your new workload, you hadn't had much of a chance to do anything with Pam or Jim. In fact, Jim was sort of, not talking to you...

You came in to work one sunny April morning to find Pam putting up a banner behind her desk, and you helped her off the counter once she was done. She smiled, and both of you examined the sign:

Welcome Back Oscar

"That's today?" You asked, and Pam nodded, giving you a quick hug hello.

"Yeah, did Toby not send you the email?" Pam asked, and you shook your head. "Oh! Maybe he hasn't added you back to the list..."

"I'll chat with him today about it." You assured her, and you both stood quiet for a moment. "Do you want to come over tonight? I just... We haven't hung out in ages."

"Oh my God yes, please. I didn't want to ask until you were properly settled in." Pam breathed out, and you grinned, walking over to your desk in a much better mood. Jim and Karen arrived in the office, by Dwight's stopwatch, 6 minutes and 13 seconds late. You smiled at Jim as he sat down, and while he smiled back, no words were exchanged.

Your phone rang, and after checking the area code number, you cleared your throat and answered.

"Esta es la oficina corresponsal extranjero de Dunder Mifflin, Y/N hablando. ¿Cómo puedo ayudarlo esta noche?" You said quickly into the phone, to be met by a loud exhale from Dwight across the table. You looked up from the phone, raising an eyebrow at him, almost daring him to try it again. "Si lo veo..." You glanced at the clock, listening to the Spaniard on the phone ramble about an issue with an online order, all while Dwight started to, very loudly, sharpen his collection of pencils. "Un momento, por favor." You said quickly, holding the phone to your chest and looking at Dwight.

"What?"

"Keep it up, Schrute, and I'll hurt you." You warned, only to receive a laugh in response. You looked around the office quickly, a surveillance check. "You don't speak Spanish, do you Dwight?" You asked, and Dwight shook his head. "Exactly, that’s the whole point... Stop what you're doing, meet me in the breakroom in ten minutes... Make sure we aren't watched." You whispered loud enough to peek Jim's interest, before returning to your call.

"Perfecto, lo trasladré de immediato. Gracias por su patiencia." You finished the call, transferring the client to the Rochester branch after five minutes of trying to talk him through the terrible set up of Dunder Mifflin's online presence, and you looked up from your phone to see Dwight had disappeared.

"He's scouting the breakroom..." Jim said quietly, and you glanced over at him, a goofy smile on his face as he typed away at his computer.

"So, you're talking to me now?" You responded, keeping a low voice, pulling up your email to get in touch with Rochester, and IT. The shitty website would, sooner or later, lose the company big clients.

"Was I not talking to you?" Jim feigned innocence, but you rolled your eyes and turned your attention back to the monitor, prompting him to sigh. "Okay, I kind of was, but I'm sorry and I would really like to help with the whole Dwight thing..." He pleaded, clearly bored out of his mind. Jim's pranking habits had certainly dimished a little, and by the desperation in his eyes, he was in withdrawal.

"Deep cover... I'm actually Agent Robin DeMarco with the CIA, here to monitor Dunder Mifflin for a spy implanted by the Russians... After he was compromised at Christmas, Pam told me all about that one, good job by the way, I was sent in to replace the returning Y/N Y/L/N, who is currently in Barcelona on holiday. Keep him safe, prep him for a new mission." You explained, and Jim clapped his hands together, biting his lip.

"Wow... Pam, you want in on this?" He asked, and Pam nodded from her desk, still on the phone. You sent off the email and looked at the time, about to leave for the pranking when Karen sat on your desk.

"How can I help?" She asked, and you stopped for a moment. You hadn't thought of her being involved at all, and a part of you didn't like her intruding on the joy you shared with Jim and Pam. You shook it off quickly.

"Oh! Yes! Ok... Wait, I got it." You grinned. "Would you like to be the Russian spy?" You asked her, and Karen's smile turned micheivous. She coughed a little, and took a deep breath.

"Why, I would love it." Karen said in her best Russian accent. "Oh, wait, let me learn something in Russian." She ran back to her desk, and you stood up from your desk, heading through the kitchen and to the break room to find a pacing Dwight.

"Sit." You said in a deeper voice than usual, closing the door behind you as Dwight sat down. "What I say must be kept confidential, Agent Schrute. Do you understand?" You walked to the vending machine, slotting some coins in and getting yourself a chocolate bar.

"But... How could you... Are you-"

"Agent Robin DeMarco, CIA. I've been in deep cover since "Y/N's" return." You said with a sigh, trying your hardest to not crack up. You turned to look at Dwight. "Didn't you find it odd that your old coworker came back from Europe skinnier?" You asked, sitting across from him.

"They do have a very carb-heavy diet over there."

"I have been surveilling this company for months now, Dwight. We got tipped off that there was a spy based here, in Scranton." You looked around quickly. "We had to make sure you weren't going against your country."

"I would never!" Dwight said, outraged, and you shushed him quickly. He hunched over. "I thought I was compromised..."

"You are, one of your coworkers is a spy Dwight. We believe they intercepted our messages before Christmas." You couldn't quite grasp how easy it was to fool Dwight, but it was entertaining nonetheless. The door suddenly opened, and you sat up straight, turning to look at Karen. She walked in, a swagger in her step as she smirked at the pair of you, getting herself a packet of chips.

"Я надеюсь, что вы рады возвращению Оскара. Дуайт идиот." Karen muttered under her breath as she left, and you shared a shocked look with Dwight, which was only half fake. You couldn't quite believe that Karen had managed to learn something in Russian in the last ten minutes.

"Was the spy in anyway Russian, Agent DeMarco?" He asked, and you nodded slowly.

"We have to keep this hush hush for now Dwight... This is dangerous stuff... Threat Level Midnight." You couldn't help but add it in.

"That's a real threat level?" Dwight asked, and you took a bite of the candy bar you had bought.

"Indeed... We had considered Michael for a time as the spy because of his knowledge." You whispered, standing quickly and walking to the door. You turned back in as movielike a fashion as possible. "You are now an active agent, Schrute. Keep quiet, watch closely... And don't fuck this up. We don't know who to trust anymore." You warned him, and he stood up, saluting as you walked back through to the main office, highfiving Karen on the way back to your desk.

--

By lunchtime, you had managed to convince half the office to get in on it and really boost Dwight's paranoia. With Karen playing the villain, constantly coming over to Jim and flirting with him for the sole purpose of giving you and Dwight cruel looks, everybody involved took on roles. You established Pam as a confidante via an email to Dwight, Jim was a suspected conspirator, Phyllis, Kevin and Meredith agreed to talk in hushed voices in the corner while looking at Dwight, and when Oscar arrived back, Pam filled him in on the ongoing prank, to which he happily agreed to speak constantly in Spanish to you while Karen glared over.

The mass conspiracy was brilliant, and as the end of the day rolled around, Oscar had told you all about his extended leave: mentioning amongst tales of London and Berlin that he went with his partner Gil.

"Wait... I didn't know you were gay." You said, in Spanish, after Oscar recounted a rather romantic trip to the Effiel Tower. He looked surprised, and then a little worried. You hadn't been around for the fiasco that was September. You quickly realised the worry, and sat up straight. "No, no, I didn't mean it like that-"

"No, I get it. It's hard to wrap your head around..." Oscar said with a sigh, disheartened by the reaction. You quickly decided to save yourself from losing a friend on their first day back.

"No, Oscar, honest. I'm not straight." You quickly cleared up, causing Oscar to look up in surprise. "Guys and girls... That's me. Girlfriend in Spain for, like, five months." You added, glad the office surrounding you was so bad with languages. Oscar laughed, giving you a tight hug, which you reciprocated.

"Hey! Why does Y/N get to hug you?" Michael called from his office, and Oscar pulled away.

"Does he know?" Oscar asked, the pair of you continuing in Spanish, and you shook your head.

"Jim and Pam do, but otherwise, I am straight to the office." Oscar nodded, and the pair of you glanced at the clock. "Almost party time..." You muttered, switching back to English, and Oscar stood up.

"I'll talk to you later, DeMar-Y/L/N." Oscar corrected himself, looking over at Dwight. Your desk mate had been entranced by your entire conversation, though he wasn't the only one.

Across the room, Andy had been desk sharing with Oscar for the day, and trying to translate every word you had spoken that day in the foreign language, and was more than freaked out by the mumbles that had been going around the room, intended to cause paranoia in Dwight. Not only that, his day had been pretty terrible since Michael shot him down on weekend plans, and Andy was convinced the whole world was against him.

He came over to your desk as the clock hit 5, the office shutting down for the party Angela had set up with the help of Pam and Phyllis, pinatas and all.

"You know, a workplace with secrets is no fun, Y/N..." Andy sat against your desk as you closed down your computer. "So, what have you been talking about all day?" He asked, and you shrugged, catching Jim sending you a wink behind Andy's back.

"I haven't a clue what you're talking about."

"Oh, come on. You and Dwight have been sneaking off to empty rooms, the oldies have been congregating on the hour, Pam keeps sending you and Dwight faxes, Jim and Karen keep staring around the office. What are you hiding from me?" Andy asked again, and you shook your head, holding back a laugh. Jim decided to torment you, making faces behind Andy's back, and you couldn't help it.

You laughed in Andy's face.

Now, you had heard reports of how Andy could get a little heated sometimes. You had seen a least one very angry phone call, yourself. However, you really didn't expect him to start shouting in your face.

"REALLY?!" Andy yelled back, and the whole office stopped what they were doing. "Why don't you just tell me what's going on, huh? Are you all plotting against me? Is that it?!" He was loud, and you could feel yourself panicking, and you couldn't help it as you began to hyperventilate. Jim's face went from shock at Andy's actions to concern for yours.

"Andy, it was a prank on-" Jim began.

"On me?! You thought you could prank me, Halpert, huh?" Andy yelled louder, and Michael came out of his office.

"What is this? Y/N, are you ok?" Michael asked, noticing how pale you were.

"No! I'm the victim here! You are all talking about me in foreign languages, thinking I'm stupid?! I'm the best sales person here! And all this? It's not funny! It's pretty freaking unfunny!" Andy screamed to the room, his anger finally collecting in his fist, and a loud thud caused you to jump, gripping onto Michael's arm.

Andy had punched a hole in the wall. A full-on hole.

The silence that followed was deafening, and no-one moved. Andy removed his hand from the damage site, and chuckled nervously as he turned to the room.

"That... Was a bit of an overreaction... Sorry about that." He smiled as he spoke, but no-one responded. "I'm gonna head to the break room... Anyone want anything? Pam, you good? Kevin? No?"

"Dwight, pack up Andy's stuff... You, in my office. We need to make some calls. Someone get me Toby... Everyone else, enjoy the party." Michael said, giving your shoulder a squeeze and gesturing for Andy to head into his office. He did, with his head hanging down and his shoulders slouched, much to Dwight's delight. He never liked Andy.

"Y/N, are you alright?" Jim was the first to speak up, and you nodded silently, smiling to reassure him.

"Let's... Let's just celebrate Oscar's homecoming." You said with enthusiasm, trying to lighten the mood. "Meredith!" You called over the office, the redhead looking up as you got her attention. "Do you have any tequila, by chance?" You asked, and she held up a bottle. "Great, the work day is over, let's make margaritas and stereotype an entire culture. You good with that, Oscar?" You asked, and Oscar let out a laugh, nodding.

"I could use a drink." He admitted, and the office slowly migrated into the conference room, eating and idly chattering away the sudden events that had transpired. You really didn't know how to feel about it all, when Dwight came over, sombero on his head and a glass of milk in hand.

"So, who was Andy working for? I always suspected he was an agent..." Dwight whispered in your ear as you took another shot, causing a smile to spread over your face. Dwight still believed it.

"Keep your ear to the ground, Schrute... I have to meet with an associate." You lied quickly, grabbing Jim's arm and pulling him out of the conference room and into the hall outside the office, falling into giggles as the front door closed.

"Is... Is everything ok?" Jim asked, worried you were processing trauma in an unhealthy way.

"Dwight is... He still thinks...." You couldn't help but start laughing again, this time Jim joined in. And stood alone in that hallway, laughing together about Dwight's incompetence, all the fear of Andy's outrage faded to nothing, and you felt safe. Secure. And that smile on Jim's face, the crinkles by his eyes and the way he held onto the wall for support because he couldn't quite control his balance.

You would never be sure if it was the tequila talking, or something else that you had buried deep down in the name of friendship, but you decided in that moment to kiss Jim. Your lips on his, soft and sweet, and while Jim was frozen still at first, he kissed back, his hands going to your waist and yours resting on his shoulders, needing to stand on tip toe to reach him. It only lasted a few seconds, and he pulled away, leaving you lightheaded and heart fluttering.

"I shouldn't..." You began, but Jim shook his head.

"I have to go." He said quickly, walking back into the office, back to his girlfriend, and leaving you alone to wonder what the fuck you had just done.

--

Tags: @imsuperawkward​ @rosie2801​ @onceuponahuntersrealm​ @poppirocks​

[leejihoonownsmyheart]

Click, Click

Chapters: 1, 2, 3

Chapter Four:

You weren’t starving yourself.

That’s what you kept telling yourself.

You were in Korea, and the food here was different, and the food here was spicy and that’s why you weren’t eating because you were picky and didn’t know what you liked here.

That’s what you kept repeating in your head.

You were in a cafeteria, you went to the right place to get food. There had even been a place with macaroni and cheese on the menu.

But they were out of mac and cheese for the next fifteen minutes… Thirty minutes ago.

Now you were settled, and anxious and you weren’t feeling like moving. No matter what you told yourself you couldn’t get the urge to get up.

You weren’t even hungry.

God, why weren’t you even hungry?

You hadn’t eaten all day. You should be hungry. But a single thought had meant that you suddenly had lost your appetite.

I’ve been eating too much. I shouldn’t eat so much.

And just like that, it was over.

Your hunger was gone in a flash. The past few days all you had done was eaten one meal, and you hadn’t been hungry at any other points in the day.

You went from eating 2000 calories to maybe 800, and the influencer? A single passing thought.

You weren’t overweight. You weren’t anorexically skinny. You didn’t have a problem with your weight or anything of the sort. You didn’t like people watching you eat, but that didn’t usually stop you from eating.

The power of your own mental influence had never been this intense before.

You had told yourself not to snack so much before in the past. You had a bad habit of eating too much when you got your hands on snacks. You got really bad cravings for really random sugary sweets a lot too, and if there was snack food around you couldn’t keep yourself from eating some.

You hadn’t had a craving since the eating problem first occurred.

Someone in the cafeteria stood up, sharply pushing back their plastic chair as they did so. The resulting sound was a loud screech that made you jump a little looking in that general direction. The person didn’t even seem to notice that they had made such a loud noise. They were laughing and smiling as they walked. Clueless to your mental state.

You tried to focus back in on the book you were reading.

Horror.

You had been very interested in horror recently.

Short films, long movies, short stories, web comics and more. You couldn’t focus on anything unless there was a scary scenario running through your head. The monotone words of someone recalling a story in which they were almost kidnapped had become the only thing that could keep your idling brain entertained recently.

You couldn’t do anything unless you were focusing on some sort of twisted horrifying scenario.

You had never been interested in horror stories before. In fact, horror used to genuinely terrify you. Over the years you had built an immunity to the scares. Jump scares didn’t get you much anymore. No, the ambiance was what was scary. Build a creepy scenario, and it sent chills down your spine.

A loud laugh ripped you from your thoughts. You looked to the side and noticed that there were two businessmen standing near you, having a conversation. You were surprised that you hadn’t noticed them before. They weren’t quiet and they were stationed pretty close to you.

Your leg began to bounce, nerves.

You leaned back in your chair, keeping your book propped open with your left hand, and chewing thoughtlessly on the tip of your thumb as you did so. You didn’t chew on your fingers. In fact, you didn’t really have bad habits like that. Sometimes you wondered what it was like to have a habit like that. You’ve had nervous ticks before. The normal things. You just sometimes wondered what it would be like if you had picked up other ones instead of the ones you had. So you consciously played with them, until you subconsciously picked it up, doing various odd habits from time to time.

The chair in front of you slid out from under the table. You glanced up in surprise, and what you found there made you jump.

Jihoon.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” he commented. His expression was soft. He had makeup on, a lot of it, but it didn’t hide how heavy his bags were under his eyes. Even his smile, while genuine, was weary.

He set two trays on the table, one in front of you.

“Evening,” you responded. Seeing Jihoon smile made your concerns momentarily melt away.

He looked so damn happy, just to see you.

It was odd to think that anyone could feel happy just because you were there. Especially someone who you had realistically spent so little time with. But he was.

You knew that the boys had just been doing practice and heavy promotions for their upcoming comeback. In the pictures you had seen, Jihoon hadn’t looked all that happy. You had been trying to avoid thinking about how down he may be feeling with the stress of being an idol.

The last time you had looked at someone and seen them smile at you, you hadn’t wanted to smile back. You couldn’t remember actively seeing someone in person, and wanting to smile at them when they smiled at you. Even your friends you didn’t want to smile back to because you didn’t want to lie. You didn’t want to manipulate them into thinking that you were happy when you really weren’t.

This was the first time in at least a year that you smiled right back without feeling that dread in your stomach for smiling and not really wanting to. Probably because you wanted to smile.

“What’s this?” You asked gesturing towards the trey that Jihoon had brought to the table. He tilted his head.

“Macaroni and cheese. I’m hungry,” he replied. You gave him a small tilt of your head.

“Why is there two treys?” You reiterated.

“For you,” he replied. “It’s dinnertime you should be eating.”

You were a pretty impressionable person.

There were certain people that you held pretty highly in your heart. You never made it known that you held them so highly so they would probably be surprised to hear exactly how often they were in your thoughts. Unsurprisingly enough, Woozi was one of those people.

You remembered times in the past when those influential people had told you something that made you change something about yourself completely.

It was always something that you had been thinking yourself already but hadn’t been comfortable enough to say out loud.

You were told once that your hair didn’t look that good down. That was your high school crush. You didn’t wear your hair down for the next four years, and only wore it down after you got it cut.

You were told at another time that you looked good in bright colors. That was by a childhood friend. You wore bright colors from then on.

One time, a guy had liked you. He was nice, but you weren’t sure how you felt about him. Your best friend at the time was very aware of everything that went on in your life. You wanted him to meet the guy you knew liked you. You knew that his approval was what you were looking for. If he didn’t approve of him, well… You knew you wouldn’t want to date him.

He didn’t say anything about him after meeting him, so you stopped inviting the guy to hang out with you.

You were very impressionable.

It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, you just were. You knew you were.

So you were careful when getting to know your kpop biases, because if they had a preference of some sort in a girl, you were afraid you might cling on to that, and change yourself to try and conform to that.

“You watch anime don’t you?” He asked after a moment. You cocked your head to the side.

“Yeah,” you replied softly. He smiled.

“Are you keeping up with any anime this season?” He asked. “I haven’t been able to really but I know that there are a lot worth watching.”

“You’re probably way too busy producing to watch anime,” you agreed. “I haven’t been following many either because of school. But I have been watching Slime.”

“Really? I have too!” Woozi agreed. Excitement crossed his facial features, and for a second he didn’t look as tired. It made you smile even brighter.

“Yeah! Honestly, it’s one of my favorite anime right now! Rimuru Tempest is so cool!” You gushed. Woozi agreed just as brightly. Before you knew it the two of you had begun to have an in depth conversation about the show and quite honestly you were a little taken aback by Jihoon’s love of the japanese cartoons.

Jihoon acted a little bit like a jock sometimes. He didn’t seem like the type to be interested in something like anime on the surface. Of course, the short conversation you had with him proved otherwise.

An undeniable spark lit up in his eyes as he spoke about the characters in anime they had both watched, and when he got particularly excited about a plot you were able to add input that only made him more excited.

You got him talking about Goblin Slayer, a particularly controversial anime for a scene in the first episode, and your opinion on it had surprisingly enough aligned with his. After a while you just settled down and listened to the boy excitedly speaking in between large, sloppy  bites of food.

Your phone was actually the thing that interrupted the conversation between you two. You glanced down, surprised to see that you had a call from Caitlin. You answered it.

“Is everything okay?” You asked softly.

“Is everything okay? It’s late and you haven’t been answering your texts!”

Your eyes widened slightly and you pulled your phone down to look at the time. It was almost midnight. You lowered your phone and mouthed just that to Jihoon who looked to be just as surprised as you were. He looked at his watch, and then at his phone, and then at your watch, and then he reached forward and he took your phone from your hand. You didn’t understand why he did that, but you let him.

“Sorry I kept her out late, don’t worry, I’ll let her go back now.”

He didn’t wait for Caitlin to respond. He hung up the phone right afterwards, and stared down at it. He then looked at you. His expression was soft. God, he looked so tired.

“Do you still have promotions tomorrow?” You asked him, your voice so quiet that you didn’t think he would hear. Whenever your voice got this quiet people didn’t ever hear you.

“We have practice pretty early,” he admitted after a moment. Your expression solemned.

“Why did you stay out with me so late. If you push your body like this-”

“If I hadn’t have come over and brought you food would you have eaten at all?” Jihoon interrupted. There wasn’t a lot you could say to that. You could either lie, or you could tell the truth.

“I-”

“I could have lied to you about how early I had to get up,” Jihoon said interrupting you again. “You lie a lot don’t you? About things that don’t even matter sometimes. This matters, do you really want to lie to me about something that matters?”

“No.”

The word left your mouth before you could even think it through. You figured that gave you a pretty clear idea on what that meant.

“I wouldn’t have eaten,” you admitted. “I’m… It’s… Eating is weird for me right now.” “I like a girl who eats,” Jihoon said.

There it was. The damning phrase. It was all over for you now. Any hope of you actually being able to get over that stupid eating habit yourself, or actually having yourself go through a really bad health habit was all over. That’s all Jihoon had to say.

“Not that that should matter,” Jihoon corrected immediately. “You can do what you want, you should just… You should try to stay healthy.”

Try to stay healthy.

You wanted to be mad at him for telling you to be healthy when he was an idol and you knew he wasn’t healthy himself, but you couldn’t rightly say it when you weren’t doing it either.

“I’m usually better about it, it’s just a recent thing,” you mumbled defiantly. You got to your feet and grabbed both of the trays. “We need to get you to bed.”

You walked them over to the trash and he followed behind you, and a soft expression on his face. You smiled at him tentatively.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he replied. “Nothing at all.”

Your expression turned into one of slight confusion, but the smile didn’t leave your face even as you did so.

“You’re much weirder in real life then I imagined you would be,” you mumbled back. Jihoon didn’t respond to that, and the two of you fell in line as you exited the building. “Where are you off to?”

“What do you think you’re going to do? Walk me home?” Jihoon asked, his voice a little bit quieter than before. You glanced over at him and noticed that he was stumbling just a tad as he walked.

“I know you’re a producer and a unit leader, but you really need to start prioritizing your rest,” you stated. “I’ve only gone like a week or two on that awful eating schedule. How long have you gone without rest?”

Jihoon didn’t respond and that was all the answer that you needed from him.

“God, I hate idols,” you murmured in English. Jihoon glanced at you, and you were pretty sure he had understood what you said, but he didn’t comment on it either way. He instead looked away from you at a passing car.

“How are you liking Korea?” He asked you. “I bet you’ve been planning this trip for a while right? Is it everything you wanted it to be?”

You nodded slowly, following Jihoon down the sidewalk to wherever he was leading you two.

“It’s nice. Different then America, but not that different you know? It’s weird seeing things in a language that isn’t my first, and eating food that isn’t the kind I grew up with,” you explained. “Different countries themselves are just strange. It’s not the first time I’ve visited one, but I’ve never been this far from home before. Especially not for this long and without my family.”

“Yeah but you don’t have a great relationship with your family anyways,” Jihoon agreed. You glanced at him.

“Yeah,” you agreed, but the question in your head remained unspoken. How did Jihoon know that?

“I know I’m an idol and all, but if you ever need anything, don’t be afraid to contact me,” he stated. Halfway through the statement he paused to yawn. “Where are you staying?”

“I don’t trust you to walk back on your own buddy,” you replied lightly. “I can make my way back without falling asleep. You on the other hand, I don’t think so.” Jihoon glared at you lightly for the jab, but you weren’t able to take the expression all that seriously when you could tell just how tired he was. It was weird, but you had watched a number of compilations of Seventeen in their freetime. You knew how he acted when he was tired. He liked to lean on things and rest his eyes, hit people lightly on the side for attention and comfort. You wanted to offer to be that support, but you still weren’t really sure what this was. Were you in a spot that you could offer that? What were you two anyways?

“I can’t let you walk home alone,” Jihoon protested. You sighed.

“Don’t make me google where you guys live,” you threatened. He frowned deeper and paused to lean against the wall. His eyes fluttered shut for just a moment, which seemed to remind him exactly how tired he was.

“I’m just down this street. We’re a block away.”

“Good, good,” you murmured softly. You hesitated to offer your arm to him, and instead just waited for him to collect himself. Once he did you guys started walking again in silence. In fact, neither of you spoke until he finally stopped in front of a building that in your distant memory looked familiar.

“This is my dorm,” Jihoon murmured. You could tell he was reluctant to leave you there so you gave him a smile and waved him off.

“Get some sleep. Thank you for the food today,” you said in farewell. Before he could say anything else you turned on the heel of your foot and started to walk away. He called your name after you and added a quick:

“See you later.”

“Good bye, Woozi,” you called back, giving him a stiff wave over your head.

It didn’t take you long to get back home after that. Seventeen’s dorm was fortunately only about a thirty to forty-five minute walk back to your apartment. Once you arrived back both of your roommates were luckily sleeping. You were worried that they would stay up waiting for you to return.

You tried to just lay down and go right to sleep, but it was super hard for you to focus. You kept thinking about your interactions with Jihoon today. Before. Even sooner then that.

You felt like you were crazy. Hallucinating maybe.

Had you possibly finally gone insane?

Sure, Caitlin and Julia had both seemed to see Woozi and the other boys as well. They were the ones who told you about the instagram comments in the first place. You had seen the picture of yourself on Woozi’s instagram.

웃어.

You tentatively upturned your lips. You let the expression drop after only a single small moment.

This was real.

To give yourself one more piece of proof you looked down at your phone, looking at the series of pictures the boy had left on your phone.

You need more pictures of me.

You closed your eyes and shoved your phone back into your pocket.

There were so many loose ends. This entire situation was just… Too bizarre. Like a bad fanfiction plot line. You weren’t a lucky girl. You weren’t stunning, and recently you were barely even Jihoon’s type. So why… How was this happening?

You changed into your pajamas and laid yourself down on to sleep.

Chapter Five

[lightsandlostbells]

so, overall, what did you think of season 3 of stranger things?

It took me a while to answer this question because I had to sort out how I felt about this season! I guess if I had to narrow it down to an overall opinion: enjoyable, but very messy. Had some of the series’ best moments but also, while I was watching, I had far more grumbles and gripes than the previous two seasons.

I’ve never really been hung up on whether this show is derivative or plays too into nostalgia or w/e. Plenty of media does that. And despite all the time I’ve spent dissecting micro-expressions and weighty silences in European teen dramas that are filmed for the cost of a candy bar … I am way into genre films and TV shows. I love monsters and superheroes and spectacle! I watched Stranger Things the weekend it premiered because I love ‘80s movies about kids on bikes having adventures, I eat that shit up. So I don’t expect this show to be a hardcore deconstruction and re-imagining of those tropes (though that sounds like a pretty great show), I’m fine with it being what it is: a solid, spooky sci-fi/horror throwback series. What matters most is whether the story and characters work. Personally, I would say whatever criticisms you can make of S1 and S2, they had heart, and unfortunately I think some of that heart was missing from S3. Much of that, IMO, comes from sidelining some of the familial relationships that were at the center of the narrative in S1 and S2, like the Byers family and Hopper & Eleven, and to some degree the important friendships like the party, although there were other friendships introduced in this season so that wasn’t as glaring. It’s not a surprise that one of the best-received parts about this season, Steve and Robin’s friendship, is also responsible for one of the most heartfelt scenes Stranger Things has ever done. 

There was also a way larger emphasis on comedy in S3. Comedy is probably my favorite genre, and I did laugh at a lot of humorous moments in this season. But I also felt like there was more comedy for comedy’s sake, like long sequences created intentionally to make the audience laugh. Whereas in S1 and S2, I can’t remember any scenes like that? The comedy was more understated and came from character personalities and relationship moments rather than joke set pieces. That’s perhaps another reason why S3 felt like it had less heart.

My hope for season 4 - and I am assuming there is a season 4, because apparently this show did mega ratings for S3 - is that they don’t add more major new characters (except love interests for the gay characters, go ahead with those, lol) and instead focus on the existing cast,  which is already a very strong ensemble, yet many of the characters have gotten pushed to the sides. I would love if they added to the episode count: a lot of Netflix series drag out their seasons, like they have enough story for 10 episodes but have to stretch it out to 13, but Stranger Things has the opposite problem. I feel like if they had 10 (or 11, ha) episodes they could have more time for breather moments and more space for character arcs. This season was really fast-paced in my opinion, and although that’s a positive in many respects, I missed a lot of the down time.

Also, I think every season has taken place over like a week maximum, not including the epilogues, and like … you can make the story last longer than a week! Not everything has to go to hell in like a day or two.

Some more specific opinions underneath, obviously lots of spoilers.

First of all, I gotta say, I feel like a weirdo, because so many of the reviews for this season are like A RETURN TO FORM AFTER A DISAPPOINTING SECOND SEASON and UP THERE WITH SEASON 1 NOT THAT CRAPPY SEASON 2 THAT NO ONE LIKED and uhhhh … I liked season 2 just fine? It’s probably my favorite. There are things I don’t like about it, but the stuff I love is stuff I really, really love. Hopper and Eleven’s relationship, for instance. Steve and Dustin teaming up and Steve Harrington becoming a guardian to four children. Those are not just great elements to the series, but directions that I think only a second season could have taken - Hopper and Eleven’s bond wouldn’t have had half the weight if they weren’t established as traumatized, broken people in S1. Steve Harrington becoming a babysitter would not be nearly so delightful if we had not known him as the popular douchebag stereotype from S1 - if he were just a cool dude hanging out with kids from the get-go, the impact wouldn’t be as great. After S1 used Will Byers as a MacGuffin in S1, S2 gave Will a much larger role and that little actor acted his ass off. His performance generated a lot of genuine suspense and chills. There was Sean Astin being lovable! Paul Reiser’s character being a surprisingly good guy! Yeah, there are big flaws in the season, and you can argue it’s too much of a repeat of S1, but to me it was a version of S1 that made the characters more specific and interesting. I’m just … genuinely baffled by how it’s supposed to be demonstrably worse than the others. Because of the Kali episode? I didn’t think that one was terrible, either. I think it broke up the momentum of the chaos at Hawkins Lab, and Kali’s friends were obnoxious, it’s certainly not the greatest writing of the series, but as a whole the episode is like. Fine. It’s fine. It’s mediocre, not atrocious. It’s not the worst thing ever. It doesn’t ruin anything about the story or direction or the series. Most importantly it’s easy to ignore or skip on a rewatch if you don’t like it. The backlash was way overblown.

My biggest disappointment with season 3 was Hopper. Whaaaaaaat. Whaaaat did they dooooo. 

Hopper in previous seasons is a flawed, messed-up human being, but I always knew where he was coming from. When he yelled at Eleven in S2, I still got why he did it. In this season he felt cartoonish. The overprotective paternalistic dad trope is annoying BUT I might have been less bothered had they connected it more to Eleven’s lack of experience with the world, less RAWRRRR KEEP BOYS AWAY FROM MY GIRL. Or if Hopper had not demonstrated like, actual rage toward Mike and we just saw him fuming about it to himself or venting to Joyce, if he was trying to keep that shit under control. (I did laugh at him singing “You Don’t Mess Around With Jim” in the car, I gotta admit.)

But his attitude toward Joyce was what really bummed me out. I’m not into this show for shipping reasons, but I low-key enjoyed the possibility of Joyce and Hopper hooking up based on previous seasons. This season felt like they were writing a completely different dynamic for them, one that was much more aggressively obnoxious. I think their intentions were clear - they were going for a Sam-and-Diane relationship, something that was referenced early on in the Bob flashback - but the problem is that their relationship was not like that at all in S1 and S2. When I think of Joyce and Hopper from those seasons, I think about him supporting her after Bob died, or listening to her concerns about her son, or working together to find Will. They didn’t have this combative dynamic! Frankly watching giant-ass Hopper yell at tiny Joyce was viscerally unpleasant. (Side note but in the first trailer there was a shot of Hopper running at the Fun Fair with someone else who I assumed was Eleven, but no, turned out to be Joyce, Winona Ryder is just that tiny next to David Harbour.)

Also, considering this season ended with his death (and we all know he’s not really dead but OK) it’s such a waste that there were few Hopper&Eleven moments! Only the finale brought some quality content on that front. But otherwise their relationship was out of sight, out of mind for almost the whole season, which wasn’t a great choice, both to maximize the emotional impact of the ending, and to expand upon their situation post-S2. I mean, it’s been months since then, how has their relationship changed now? Hopper’s letter talked about the stuff he enjoyed doing with his daughter - why didn’t we see any of that on screen this season? It could’ve helped with the Mike angle, too, like show Hopper and Eleven watching TV together and laughing and having a good time, and then the phone rings and it’s Mike and suddenly Hopper’s watching TV alone as Eleven’s now focused on her boyfriend, we see his disappointment, etc. 

Scoops Troop - Now they were a delight. They had such a ludicrous story but for the most part it worked due to the characters playing off each other and because the writing/acting/directing embraced the silliness. 

Steve Harrington is easily one of the best characters on this show. I fucking love that guy. He’s consistently entertaining, he’s had possibly the best character growth out of anyone in the series, he’s evolved from a stock ‘80s asshole stereotype into someone who’s funny and sympathetic and likable. He’s this amazing blend of the ridiculous with the heroic. Steve and Dustin were great together, as they were last season, and I’m cackling that Steve acquired YET ANOTHER CHILD under his supervision without even trying. But the MVP of the season was the Steve & Robin friendship. Holy shit do I love that relationship. Holy SHIT.

Robin herself is a terrific new character, smart and funny and once you know she’s half-Uma, you can’t unsee it. I was loving her already and then the bathroom scene happened and I YELLED. I was so utterly overjoyed. If they had made Steve and Robin hook up, honestly … I would’ve been fine with it, like this show doesn’t need more heterosexual romance but at least they had a fun dynamic, but man, the friendship angle was so so superior. It’s a type of relationship that media is lacking, and the specific circumstances of this friendship made it genuinely moving to me. I keep wanting to write like a meta post devoted to just this relationship because I just have so many emotions about it! But they play well off each other as a comedic duo and as an odd couple friendship, and they’re really what each other needs, IMO. Steve needed this close friendship more than he needed a girlfriend; in this season he’s clearly adrift and we’ve seen the kind of shitty friends he had in like season one, is Dustin the best pal he had at this point? And I love Steve & Dustin but Steve needed a good friend his own age. Robin is a lesbian in small-town Indiana in the ‘80s, and she was clearly full of fear that Steve would hate her if he knew, and for him to accept her so easily, not even making a big deal about it? That’s kind of life-saving, really. I can’t wait to see more of them, if Netflix wants to make the half-hour Clerks-esque spinoff about them working in a video store and shooting the shit, I would be 100% down for that.

I have some mixed feelings about Erica because I think she could have benefited from getting the same humanization as the other kids (and I’m going to leave the discussion of racial tropes gently by the side at the moment but … yeah). The other child characters are played more like actual people with vulnerabilities, which has been part of the show’s appeal since the first season, and Erica was more like the sitcom kid who always has a snarky quip ready; however, she did make me laugh and I like that they tapped into her being a nerd, I wish they’d explore that in future seasons with the character. “I’m ten, you bald bastard” was one of my favorite lines of the season, I lost my goddamn mind. 

Billy - Lmao, so Billy in S2 was the woooorst. This dude had ZERO redeeming qualities. His abusive dad creates a smidgen of sympathy, I guess, but Billy goes so far beyond normal teenage assholery that it didn’t make a dent in my opinion of him. You can redeem someone like Steve Harrington, first of all because Steve actually feels regret and works to correct his mistakes, but Steve also didn’t go to a point of no return in the first place. Billy did, for me. Physically and verbally abusing his younger sister? Attacking a black middle-schooler for the crime of being in the same room as his white sister? What a piece of shit.

With that in mind - I have no problem focusing on him as a villain this season, I really don’t. It justifies his inclusion in S2 other than as a human antagonist who’s ultimately not really connected to the main plot, as it retrospectively establishes him as an even greater threat in this season. I also think the actor did a good job with the material he was given. However, ultimately this dude’s arc was underwhelming. The thing is … I can tell they were trying to show Billy struggling with the Mind Flayer, but Billy is so lacking in any positive qualities that it’s kind of like, where does that struggle even come from? Yeah, even the worst people aren’t going to be wild about having a monster from another dimension hijack your body and use it to collect people for spare parts, but this is the same dude who was about to run over Mike, Lucas, and Dustin on their bikes last season for absolutely no reason. He beat Steve to point of unconsciousness and could’ve put him in the hospital. He assaulted Lucas. So I really need some evidence of Billy’s moral compass because it is not inherent and there’s in fact plenty of evidence that it doesn’t exist. I’m not very enthusiastic about redeeming a racist, abusive creep, but I also think if you’re going to go for him helping Eleven at the end … you have to show some current potential for goodness, not just “used to be a nice kid.”

A really glaring omission: the lack of any family/home scenes with him, Max, and their parents this season. We left off last season with Max telling him to leave her and her friends alone. How is their relationship since then? Is there still a lot of friction? Is there a tense peace? Has their relationship improved in any way? We really needed to see that follow-up. I get that Max crying over Billy this season makes sense in that he’s still her family and we can still have love for those who hurt us … but I also feel that we needed something between them to justify her pain, like even just the potential of their relationship being a fraction better, or the suggestion that Billy used to be OK to Max before he went full asshole. And I think we really needed to see Billy’s dad being currently abusive in this season - tbh, missed opportunity that the dad didn’t get flayed like, out of revenge (which would have been both satisfying and horrifying), missed opportunities for suspense when we think Billy might serve up Max and her mom to the Mind Flayer, etc.

Another missed opportunity: drawing parallels between Billy and Will. Both are possessed by the Mind Flayer. Both had shitty dads calling them homophobic slurs. Both could be read as gay (I’m not hungry to claim Billy as LGBT representation or invested in this interpretation but his scenes with Steve in S2 admittedly have that sweaty homoerotic dick-measuring vibe, if you want to take it there). Their names are both William, FFS. The difference is that Will is a sweet and gentle kid surrounded by loving family and friends who fought to save him, and Billy is a violent, cruel dude who probably doesn’t have any real friends, just shallow connections. You could show how the Mind Flayer could more easily possess and manipulate someone like Billy, but that wasn’t really explored.

Also, is anyone going to dwell on the fact that like … Max is living with an abusive man as her stepfather? He’s shown hurting Billy’s mom. Does that not concern anyone that he is very likely to attack either Max or her mom? 

Oh, and thank God they didn’t take the Billy/Karen thing all the way. In retrospect, even weirder considering Billy’s mommy issues. 

Joyce - I get that it’s a big leap downward in emotional investment to go from “must save my son” to “fucking magnets, how do they work” but I liked that she had her own investigation that wasn’t full of emotional turmoil. Winona forever. 

Mike - Everyone is ragging on him but I think he was less terrible than people are making him out to be. He was bratty in a teenage way, but he wasn’t the worst kid ever. I didn’t take his now notorious line to Will (“It’s not my fault you don’t like girls”) as something intentionally cruel or homophobic, just something that came out wrong and that he instantly regretted, and he and Lucas did seem genuinely apologetic over the D&D game and went over to Will’s in the rain out of concern. And the reason he lied to Eleven was because SCARY ASS HOPPER threatened him??? Also, his concern over Eleven overexerting herself was not misplaced, lmao! It really took that long for anyone to go, “Hey, should we be worried about the amount of blood coming out of her nose? Should we be concerned about the effects on her brain?” Sure, Eleven has the final say in whether or not she uses her powers, but tbh… she didn’t have a normal upbringing and her view of her powers is probably skewed. Like, would Eleven have enough basic medical knowledge to be worried about brain damage or nosebleeds, or would that just be the norm to her? Is she making these decisions with a full grasp of the potential consequences? Anyway, I don’t have a more negative opinion of Mike after this season. 

Eleven - I loved Eleven a lot in this season. I don’t know if it did a ton for her character arc, but it’s nice to see her slowly develop into more of a normal girl. And the season was rough for her in terms of getting her ass kicked, she goes through so much mental and physical pain! In the end she loses her dad and her powers!

Of course one of the bright spots was her and Max becoming friends! Not gonna lie, there was something a little … simplistic about some of that depiction of friendship for me - just that so much of it was SHOPPING and GIGGLING and BOY TALK, girls being GIRLS, when Max has been portrayed as a tomboy and Eleven is a telekinetic kid raised in a lab, that maybe their interactions shouldn’t have fit the mold quite so much - but it doesn’t truly bother me because they were so sweet and fun. I loved them tracking down Billy together and I appreciate that their friendship carried throughout the season, that Max was the person shown carrying an injured Eleven along with Mike, Eleven comforted Max after Billy died, etc. That was a definite sore spot of S2, the girl-on-girl jealousy and Eleven flat-out rejecting Max’s friendly introduction, and I do think they took that feedback into account for the better here. I also like that Eleven was clearly taking cues from Max, the more “worldly” of the two about boys and clothes and teenage attitudes in general - it gave their friendship a more specific shape.

I cannot WAIT to see her living with the Byers family next season. Like if they don’t spend significant time on that dynamic, it will be the biggest disappointment. There could be 8 episodes of just boring mundane Byers domestic scenes and I would love it, please inject it into my eyeballs, Duffer bros. I want to see her bonding with all of them, trying to fit in at school, attempting the most normal life she’s ever had. Also lmao, she and Will can finally have a goddamn conversation??? I hope they’ve been withholding that relationship because they were planning to go all out with those new sibling vibes in S4. They are the two characters who have been most traumatized by the Upside Down, we deserve to see them connect.

On that note, I have a lot of thoughts about Will in this season! Mainly - underused as FUCK. After all that trauma of being possessed by the Mind Flayer last season, they barely utilize this connection in the second half of S3. Even his Spidey sense hardly came in handy??? Now that was really weird, IMO, because the least they could do was have that feeling alert the others or be useful, but lmao it was practically pointless. 

It’s weird because I’m not sure if they just don’t know what to do with Will if he’s not being a victim (which is stupid because there’s plenty you could do with him), but at the same time, he has one of the most poignant subplots of the season. From the reactions I’ve seen, Will feeling rejected and left out as his friends move on really resonated with a lot of viewers. But then this thread is abandoned after episode 3, for the most part. Will cries and destroys the place that represents his childhood, a place that was created specifically in response to trauma (mentioned in S2 that he and Jonathan built it after their dad left), this is very rich emotional territory … and then the show’s just like ehhhhhh moving on. He’s just hanging out in the background and touching his neck for the rest of the season. 

And now I gotta talk about that other thing with Will.

I am so confused by what the Duffer brothers are trying to accomplish with Will’s sexuality, because on the one hand it seems like they have a really clear idea about it and on the other hand they’re just like¯\_(ツ)_/¯  The thing is … it seems very obvious they have always thought of Will as gay. This is blatant from the original pitch from the show as well as one of the S2 scripts (the only one that’s available publicly, so who knows what else they’ve written). I accept that people have different interpretations, but The Line this season is far from the only textual support for Will being gay, and I think it makes for a much, much stronger narrative if you read Will as gay in addition to not wanting to grow up as fast as his friends and being stunted from trauma - that is an entire meta post in itself, though. 

What gets me about the ~ambiguity is that the Duffer brothers planted the gay hints in the first place! They are absolutely not there by accident! Like I’m not speaking for the teenage actors but lmao, the adults involved in the writing and directing of this series absolutely fucking knew how that “not my fault you don’t like girls” scene would be interpreted, especially considering fans were debating Will’s sexuality from the beginning, based off the many homophobic comments leveled at him in S1. There have been TV shows where fans latched onto gay “subtext” that was likely unintentional, but this isn’t one of them. 

IDK, man, it’d just be nice to have some confidence in where this is going. I loved Robin and the bathroom scene made me think that yeah, they might do a decent job with Will’s sexuality, something I might have doubted before. Under no circumstances do I expect a Skam S3-style coming out arc for Will, but I’m also uncertain if I should expect anything from the show on this front at all or if they’ll play it coy to the bitter end. Though I guess I’d still take the ambiguity over giving him a female love interest after everything. Lol, that would be a giant oh-fuck-no.

Real talk, though, let’s discuss what an utter waste it would be to not write a scene where Joyce tenderly accepts her son when he comes out to her. You really aren’t going to bring that instantly iconic moment to life, assholes? You’re not going to provide that for Winona Ryder’s and Noah Schnapp’s Emmy reels? MAKE IT HAPPEN, BASTARDS.

Nancy and Jonathan have a reputation for the most boring plots but they’re fine, w/e. I’m not deeply invested in their romance but I don’t want to fast forward their scenes or anything. Nancy is an underrated character; she’s extremely proactive and always has been, and I enjoy watching her shoot things. I think the best thing they could do for both characters, though, is to separate them next season, not just physically but storyline-wise. Jonathan would be best in a subplot involving his family, because he’s at his most likable as a son and brother, and Nancy should either go off with Mike (a sibling relationship that is VASTLY undeveloped), or she should team up with Robin. I mean it, Nancy and Robin would be a power pairing, let me show you my manifesto. Both are smart young women who are good at solving mysteries. Would Robin think Nancy is a priss after Nancy unloads several rounds into the latest demogorgon chasing them? Would Nancy find Robin a refreshing alternative to the crushing suburban conformity that she claims to want to avoid? Oh, the possibilities. Meanwhile, Steve tags along in the background, all like OH SHIT, my lesbian BFF and my ex-girlfriend are in cahoots! 

Lucas and Max were playing relationship counselors to Mike and Eleven through much of the season. Max still had a fair amount to do, but Lucas needs a meatier subplot next time. I feel like they’re not sure what to do with him? I would like to see him and Erica interact more since their dynamic so far is one-note. 

There is one hell of a conversation to be had about the Evil Russians of this season, but I’m really not the person to do it. 

Also about the depiction of capitalism this season. That’s more thinkpiece-y than I am equipped to do right now. 

The product placement is something that should bother me more but I’m just like … shrug. Except that New Coke bit because that was an actual mood-breaker. 

Could have done without Russian Terminator guy. That was a blatant ‘80s homage so I get why he was there, he just wasn’t all that interesting. And was that guy supposed to be superpowered or something? Was he getting jacked on Upside Down steroids???  What was his deal???

Alexei/Murray was the true OTP of the season, let’s be real.

The trend of lovable, doomed minor characters continued with Alexei. Props to that actor for making you root for the guy. He even made me kind of love Murray? I was very WTF over that guy encouraging two teenagers to fuck in S2, and I’m still not into his habit of telling people to bang even when they’re adults, but I guess he just needed a sympathetic Russian buddy to win me over. 

There were a ton of moments where I felt like the characters made stupid choices as opposed to earlier seasons. Will getting dragged into the Upside Down in the first 10 minutes of the series is an impressive example of a horror movie character doing everything right and making good decisions - a 12-year-old, no less. And he was still overpowered by the demogorgon so it’s not like making good decisions will always save you! Whereas this season I was like LORD some of these characters are drinking dumbass juice. 

There was also so much silly stuff happening, like things that are even more far-fetched than previous seasons, but I just kind of went with it. Yeah, of course there’s a secret Russian base under a shopping mall. Sure.

This season is objectively disgusting in terms of gore and yet I was fine with it? And I’m someone who was repulsed by Barb’s corpse in S1. The Mind Flayer being made of people was some nasty shit but effective horror. I felt bad for the poor little rats :( Oh, and the flayed humans, too. Some of them. Was sad to see Mrs. Driscoll bite it but FUCK those cartoon misogynists from the newspaper. 

Visually beautiful! Starcourt Mall is an amazing set and I’m rather sad that the mall was destroyed, although that was basically a foregone conclusion. Some great cinematography, too. On a purely aesthetic level I had a great time just blasting this season into my retinas.

I have had the motherfucking NeverEnding Story theme song in my head for almost two weeks and I’m suffering.

[symbrock-darling]

(Took me two minutes to ask cause I don’t usually ask without anon lol) Symbrock prompt: Eddie encounters and has an argument with a rude fellow. Venoms there, let’s see what happens(maybe??)(btw love your writing❤️👌)

Thank you @mydoggoesnom ! I’m glad you asked off anon :] Anyway, this was a fun one, mostly because I got hung up on the idea of ‘rude’ which morphed into ‘eat the rude’ and then Hannibal and, well, this happened. I hope you all enjoy!

Rating: T

Word Count: ~1300

Eddie was beat. For the better part of a week, he’d been busy chasing down leads for a story, and with all the running around trying not to get caught or shot – with varying levels of success – convincing Venom that now was not the time to break into a hive of gangsters just because they’d found them, and remembering to eat – normal food, much to Venom’s bellyaching – it was a wonder he’d gotten any sleep at all.

But he had, if only for a couple of hours a day. Ever since he’d bonded with Venom, Eddie found he didn’t need as much sleep as he used to. The symbiote was like a long-lasting energy drink. Practically the energizer bunny, so long as he got some shut-eye, and so long as they did, they could keep going on and on and on.

Usually, there was nothing wrong with that. They’d sleep and wake about the same time and everything would work out just fine.

Only lately Venom liked to stay up longer than Eddie, a tentacle planted in front of the TV while Eddie lay deep in oblivion on the bed, the sound of a show white noise to lull him to sleep. He noticed that when Venom did this, he let Eddie sleep longer as if to compensate for the shared hours of sleep they both needed – Eddie making up for Venom’s deficit. Frankly, Eddie didn’t mind. He rather liked sleeping, and Venom never got up to anything while Eddie rested. At least, Eddie was pretty sure he didn’t.

But this week, instead of getting the mutual sleep they needed to function, Eddie slept while Venom decided it was a great idea to stay awake through the hours, watching a show instead.

“I couldn’t stop,” Venom said when Eddie threw a pillow at the alien’s head after he’d woken up groggy and resentful after another night of half-sleep. “One episode ended and another started, and I just had to know!”

“That’s how they get you, Vee,” Eddie had replied, snappier than usual. “Jesus, did you at least make some coffee for me?”

It would’ve been fine if it had only been a day or two, or if Venom slept while Eddie worked, but the symbiote refused to grab some shut-eye when there was even a whiff that Eddie might be in some sort of danger – or if Venom might miss something cool. But his alien had done this every single night for the past week, despite the consequences Eddie had to deal with.

Thankfully though, Eddie had gotten his story. The work was done for the next few days and he could finally, blissfully, get the sleep he deserved.

And I’ll finally be able to finish my show, Venom said excitedly. It’s good, Eddie. You should watch it. You would learn a lot. I know I have.

“I cannot believe an extraterrestrial like you is a show binger,” Eddie grunted. “Like, seriously. You could wreak havoc on my poor little world, and you’re watching TV of all things.”

Your human version of entertainment is astounding, Venom said. I don’t even have to move.

“Not that you do much moving without me in the first place,” Eddie muttered. They were close to home now, and all he could think of was his beautiful bed. He didn’t care what Venom did so long as he got some solid, uninterrupted sleep; enough to stop feeling like this, and more like himself. Let the alien enjoy his show. Eddie did not care.

As he made for the doorway to his apartment building, however, he froze and groaned when he felt the cold muzzle of a gun pressed against the back of his head.

“Give me your wallet!”

“Listen, man, you really don’t want to do that,” Eddie said. “It’s been a long day, I’ve seen some crazies do some crazy shit, and I’m not up to being his moral compass right now. Just drop the gun and walk away, or things are about to get real bad for you.”

Venom, to Eddie’s surprise, watched the situation calmly and with an air of approval.

That was polite of you, Eddie.

Eddie’s face twisted with bewilderment because that was out of character for Venom, who under normal circumstances should have already manifested and started throwing the asshole against the concrete. His thoughts didn’t linger, however, not when the metal pressed brutally against his scalp.

“You trying to be cute? Who do you think you are?” the guy said as he cocked the pistol. “Don’t mess with me, fucker! Just give me your wallet!”

He felt Venom’s pleasure rush through him, all the signal he needed. Eddie had time to roll his eyes and mutter, “Here we go,” before Venom masked him.

The alien towered over the punk with a toothy grin as a massive black hand snatched the idiot’s hoodie by its front. Venom lifted him off his feet and within inches of his mouth.

“You should have listened.” Venom’s tongue slid across the guy’s face, savoring the taste of fear coating him in a way that made Eddie’s human mind balk while his hunger gave a ping of interest. “The rude should always be eaten.”

Venom opened his mouth wide, displaying every razor-sharp tooth, but Eddie had to admit he was impressed when all the punk did was give a sharp yelp of alarm before he reacted. The gun clattered to the ground as he lifted his arms, his body going limp so gravity could drag him down and out of the hoodie Venom still held. The asshole’s footsteps echoed up along the brick walls around them as he ran for his life, and Venom chuckled instead of giving chase.

“Pussy.”

At Eddie’s tired suggestion, Venom swept up the gun and shot the bullets safely at himself to spend the rounds, before crushing the pistol in his hands and tossing the ball of metal in the garbage. Eddie regained control of the body and was inside and well on his way toward their apartment by the time police sirens had stopped outside to investigate the noise.

He’ll think next time he decides to be rude, Venom said. He’s food then.

“What is up with you and this fixation on what’s polite and rude?” Eddie asked. “You’ve never cared before.”

It’s that show, Eddie. The one you should watch. There’s a doctor in it who thinks it’s important to be polite, otherwise— Venom manifested a tentacle and grinned. “You pay for it.”

“What? By being eaten?”

“Yes, Eddie.”

Eddie paused outside his door and gave Venom a quizzical look before a few pieces started to fall into place.

“Vee, what show have you been watching?”

“It’s called Hannibal.”

Eddie gave Venom the blandest expression he could muster as the whole picture finally came into focus. He sighed.

“Eat the rude?”

Venom grinned. “Eat the rude. Hannibal Lecter is correct, you know. He understands that you should just eat the thing that annoys you.”

“You do realize that’s a problem, right?”

“Hardly. I eat all of my problems if I don’t kill them first.”

“Yeah,” Eddie said as he entered his apartment, closed the door and made a beeline for his bed. “Always works out just fine.”

As Eddie closed his eyes and listened to the distant sounds of Venom playing his next episode of Hannibal, he wondered if it would be worth the effort to put restrictions on the streaming services, rather than risk Venom picking up any more ideas from TV.

[ladylynse]

Okay, so I haven’t seen a lot of Dude, That’s My Ghost!, but I do know Danny Phantom, and @wolfsongroar​ was more than happy to get a crossover as a thank you for their donation to my ko-fi. (Thank you again!) Set sometime after Danny gets his ice powers and in season one of Dude, That’s My Ghost! since I’ve only seen episodes from that season. This is longer than I’d expected it to be, but I doubt you think that’s a bad thing.

Danny is sick of falling through portals to places unknown. Billy, on the other hand, is delighted that he has another fan who can see him--even if said fan isn’t as adoring as he should be.  [FF | AO3]

The impact knocked the breath from his body. Danny barely had time to get his wits together and look up before the portal he’d fallen through (been thrown through) closed above him. He groaned and lay his head back down in the crater he’d made in the asphalt.

Sometimes, he really hated natural portals.

At least he was resilient. Nothing broken. He probably wouldn’t even be bruised when he changed back.

…which, considering this wasn’t Amity Park and ghosts weren’t the norm, he should do sooner rather than later. He didn’t want to accidentally terrify anyone while he tried to find out where he was. Besides, if he managed to get a message to Wulf or call Cujo to him so he could get back home through the Ghost Zone, they’d come to him whether he was Phantom or Fenton.

“I need to get out of here,” Danny muttered, getting to his feet with a wince. He was going to be sore for a while, but he was used to that now.

He’d crashed into the middle of the street (of course), but he didn’t have to look far to know his instinct had been right. Wherever he was, it wasn’t Amity Park. Amity Park didn’t have palm trees. Or buildings so fancy they had to be surrounded by a tall stone fence. (Okay, so Vlad’s mansion had had one once, but he hadn’t rebuilt it after the first time Danny had destroyed it.) On the upside, it looked like the right dimension and the right season, judging by the green grass and sunny skies, so at least the portal hadn’t spit him out into a different realm or time. Probably.

First things first. He needed to figure out where he was. Then, he could figure out the best way to get home. The coast was clear, so he changed back and flicked intangible to get off the last of the asphalt dust. He’d probably still stand out like a sore thumb in jeans and a t-shirt in a neighbourhood as rich as this one obviously was, but normal clothes were still less conspicuous than HAZMAT suits.

Danny started walking down the street, trying not to look around too much or otherwise draw attention to himself if anyone walked by. He had to pass a town sign at some point.

XXXXX

Spencer was glad when his phone started to ring. He was trying to come up with a new idea for a movie, and all Billy kept pitching was something that inevitably starred him. “C’mon, bro-man! I’ll play the invisible man and rescue all the ladies!”

“Just…hold that thought.” Spencer grabbed his cell phone and glanced at the display before answering. “What’s up, Rajeev?”

“Dude, was that you and Billy just now? I thought you weren’t going to start without me!”

“Was…what? What are you talking about?”

“The thing that fell from the sky! You shooting an alien horror movie this time?”

“The what? What thing?”

“By the school! Was that seriously not you?”

“Uh, no.” Alien horror movie sounded good, though. He could work with that. “Let’s go check it out. I’ll just—”

“Already on my way, dude. You and Billy should get a move on. I think that’s the news truck pulling up.”

Spencer blinked, but Rajeev had hung up before he could ask for any more details. “Something weird’s going down at the school,” he said.

Billy’s form twisted. When it settled, he was wearing a deerstalker and holding a giant magnifying glass. “I love a good mystery!”

Spencer rolled his eyes and grabbed his video camera, not willing to miss this opportunity if there was a good story to be captured. “Let’s just see what’s going on first.”

XXXXX

Danny ducked into an alley, trying to figure out what to do. People had noticed. Quickly. More quickly than he was used to, but then again, everyone in Amity Park was used to this being a near-daily occurrence. Besides road closure announcements, the scene of a ghost fight didn’t make the news after the ghosts were gone unless people were trying to rally to make Ghost Insurance a thing. (It would never be a thing. Nobody who needed it would be able to afford the premiums. Even he knew that.)

Considering how his day was going, if he showed up at the scene of the crime, he’d be accused of causing it. They wouldn’t be wrong about that, since he had, but it would definitely be inconvenient, even if he’d have no trouble phasing out of whatever holding cell they stuck him in until they could contact his parents. Of course, walking away from the place everyone seemed to be flocking to would raise major flags, too.

He could go invisible for now.

He couldn’t stay invisible until he got back home.

Danny stuck his head around the corner, looking back the way he’d come and trying to figure out what the best option was. Stay invisible for an hour and then pretend to be an out-of-town visitor? Give up and try to fly to the next town over, even though he didn’t know which was the best direction to go? Try to find whatever passed as the tourist centre for this place and steal a map? (He’d pay for it, but he didn’t actually have any money on him. It’s not like he’d expected to wind up in the middle of nowhere—or, rather, the middle of somewhere that wasn’t home. Or somehow connected to Vlad.)

“Hey, Spencer, what’s up with the dye job? Your mom force you to try out all her second-rate hair products?”

What? Danny turned, and the tittering group of girls fell silent. “Uh….”

The blonde girl in the middle sniffed. “Who are you?” She was the one who’d spoken before. He had a feeling she’d wanted to add an insult to her words now, but he knew that look. She wasn’t sure she could afford to, not until she knew it wouldn’t be a mistake.

Which begged the question of who she thought he might really be. It’s not like he was remotely intimidating as Fenton. (He wasn’t particularly intimidating as Phantom, either, but his reputation spoke for itself.)

The girl rolled her eyes when he didn’t answer right away and waved a dismissive hand in his direction. “Oh, whatever, you’re not going to be important if you’re skulking in an alley.” She turned and swept off down the street, toward the gathering crowd, her entourage trailing behind her.

An older man in some wannabe secret service getup watched Danny for a moment longer before following. Danny hadn’t even noticed him until he’d moved, too busy staring after the girls and trying to figure out if he needed to worry about them. But bodyguard guy? He’d probably just committed Danny’s face to memory. The girls might forget about him, but this guy wouldn’t. Especially when it came to the search for the perpetrator.

He’d been in an alley.

That screamed suspicious person.

What had he been thinking?

“I better make sure I don’t need to do some damage control,” Danny muttered. He didn’t bother going ghost before turning invisible; he didn’t plan to stick around for long. He just wanted to get close enough to see if he needed to deal with anything before he split.

XXXXXX

Billy kept up a running commentary all the way to the school (it was his job to keep Spencer entertained and act as his muse, since all his best movie ideas came from Billy) and dropped him off around the corner so no one would get suspicious. Spencer ran to catch up to his friends—Rajeev and Shanilla were already there—and Billy waved to them before zipping over to see what all the fuss was about.

The fuss was about a hole in the road.

That was boring.

Why were they here?

The police were trying to push the crowd back so they could cordon off the area, but still. Boring. It was a crater. No big deal. He could make plenty of craters.

“Nothing interesting here,” he announced as he floated down to join Spencer and the others. “It’s just a hole.”

“A crater,” corrected Shanilla. “Caused by an object falling from the sky that they haven’t located.”

“So someone ran off with it. Who cares?”

“Or it broke apart on impact into a million little pieces that we’re breathing in and the alien dust is going to kill us all!” Rajeev chimed in.

Shanilla sighed and kept filling Spencer in. “There’s no telling when they’ll release an official statement, but the police chief did say we shouldn’t worry about this becoming a regular occurrence. Most space debris burns up before it ever reaches the surface.”

Spencer blinked. “You really think something fell from space?”

Rajeev grinned. “Where else would it fall from?”

Spencer glanced at Billy. “What?” he said indignantly. “This isn’t me! Not everything that happens is because of me! Only the good stuff.”

“And all the ecto-contamination,” Spencer muttered, but he couldn’t properly respond to Billy anymore than the others could, not when they were in a crowd like this where everyone was straining to hear—

Wait.

Billy squinted, peering across to the edge of the crowd on the other side of the street.

That kid was definitely looking at him.

Well, maybe just at Spencer, Shanilla, and Rajeev. Billy grinned and waved just in case. The boy paled but raised his hand in return. Ha! Awesome! The new kid was a Cobra fan! And properly intimidated by the idea of meeting his idol. Well, of course he’d be a fan, he had style like Spencer did, and only the stylish had something of the Cobra’s.

Billy did the natural thing: he flew over to introduce himself. Not that he needed the introduction, but he’d do anything for his fans. They liked all the introductions and hand shaking and signed paraphernalia. Billy grabbed the kid’s hand and shook it vigorously. “Billy Joe Cobra! Please to meet you, my adoring fan. Don’t feel you need to hold back on the adoring. I can take it. I’m even better than everything you’ve ever heard about me!”

The boy blinked. “Uh…hi?”

Billy looked him up and down, but he couldn’t recognize anything the kid was wearing. “Where’s your Cobra gear?” He dropped to his knees and pulled up the kid’s jeans. “Those aren’t my socks, are they?”

The boy jerked back. “No!”

“My underwear?” The boy gagged, so clearly not. “Maybe a guitar pick in your pocket?”

“I didn’t steal any of your stuff!” the boy hissed, retreating farther.

“Billy, what are you doing?”

Billy turned, not realizing the others had followed him. He lengthened his arm and wrapped it around the new kid before the boy got the wrong idea and thought he needed to hide the truth from Spencer and the others. “Meeting my newest fan! Spencer, Rajeev, Shanilla, this is—” He broke off and looked expectantly at the boy.

The boy kept his mouth shut and glared.

“Seriously, stop goofing off,” Spencer said. “Every time you run off like that, I think Hoover got you.”

“How is meeting my adoring fans goofing off?”

Spencer raised his eyebrows. “Really? We’re doing this now? There’s no one here who can see you besides us.” He gestured towards Rajeev and Shanilla.

“Yeah, and my new fan,” Billy said, using his free hand to point to the boy who was currently sulking in his embrace and otherwise not acting like the adoring fan he should.

Spencer, Shanilla, and Rajeev exchanged glances. “Dude,” Rajeev said quietly, “you get hit by some of that alien dust? It’s just us.”

Billy looked at the boy.

The boy scowled back.

“You can’t…see him?”

Shanilla frowned. “Is there another ghost?”

The boy wasn’t offering up any information, but his feet were planted firmly on the ground, and what kind of ghost chose to stay landlocked when they could pull some sick moves in the air? Besides, he looked human. Although clearly if the others couldn’t see him, something was up.

Maybe a little ecto would fix it.

Sure, that hadn’t gone super great with Spencer by the end of the day, but most of it had been beyond chill. And, okay, so there were plenty of times that ecto had made things worse. But if the dude was already invisible to them, this wouldn’t make him more invisible, and—

“Just give us something of his if there is,” Spencer said, holding out his hand.

The boy ducked out of Billy’s grip at that, turning and running up the street. Back to Plan A, then. Ignoring the others, Billy spit a wad of ectoplasm into his hand, rolled it into a slightly more solid gel form, and conjured a bat.

He promptly dropped the bat in favour of flying to keep up with the ball, ready with some more ectoplasm just in case, while Spencer, Rajeev, and Shanilla ran after him. After them.

The boy ducked, and Billy’s ectoplasm sailed high and hit a parked car. The kid skidded to a halt and stared as the car began to glow blue. “Oh, crud,” he said.

Billy took advantage of his distraction to throw a glob of ectoplasm at the back of his head. Then, as the boy reached to wipe it off, Billy sneezed and covered him with more ectoplasm. Just to be on the safe side.

The boy blinked as ectoplasm dripped off the end of his nose. His eyes changed from blue to a bright, glowing green. Not the standard reaction to ectoplasm, but, well, there wasn’t really a standard reaction to it. “I fixed you!” Billy said. “Now they’ll be able to see you. Probably. I think.” He turned, catching sight of the incredulous faces of his friends, their disbelief visible even from half a block away. Grinning, he turned back to the boy. “Yeah, they can see you now! It’s all good!”

The boy pointed at the car, which had started revving its engine and flashing its lights at them. “You call that all good?”

“There might be a teensy bit of room for improvement,” allowed Billy.

“Billy! What did you do?” Spencer gasped.

He was staring at the car, which had turned so that it was now facing all of them. He could hear its tires spinning and could smell burning rubber. Not that that mattered to him.

“I, uh, made my friend visible?” Billy said, pointing at the boy.

He glanced over, blinked, and looked again.

Correction: he was pointing at where the boy had been.

His ectoplasm lay in a puddle on the ground, but the boy was gone.

That was a new reaction to ecto. Well. Maybe. Maybe it wasn’t. “Um….”

“Just clean that up!” Spencer yelled, pushing Shanilla out of the way when she didn’t react fast enough to the oncoming car. “We need to fix this before everyone notices!”

Party poopers. Billy stuck his finger in the ectoplasm and sucked it back up. Rajeev was currently trying to lure the car away from the crowd below, but he wasn’t exactly the fastest runner in the group. That’s okay. Billy could play matador with the car until they got this sorted out. And then he could find his new friend.

XXXXX

“I hate possessed technology,” Danny muttered. He’d phased down into the sewers to transform before shooting up the skies to figure out the best way to take out the newest threat without causing more damage than necessary. Ideally, he’d get help from Tucker or another technogeek, but Danny kinda doubted any of the ghost’s friends were technogeeks. The one boy, Spencer, had had a camera with him, but he just didn’t have a technogeek vibe. Maybe because he wasn’t joined at the hip with a PDA or phone or something that could hack into something else.

Danny sighed. He should’ve known something would go wrong even before his ghost sense went off. And he should’ve done something about the ghost the minute he’d realized he wasn’t the only one in town. But the ghost—Billy Joe Cobra, apparently, whoever that was—had seemed friendly enough. He hadn’t caused property damage (at least not that property damage), possessed people, or stolen things or anything like that.

Until he’d infused a car with his ectoplasm.

And…whatever he’d been trying to do to Danny.

At least his ecto-snot wasn’t phase proof like the Fenton Foam. It hadn’t been as gunky, either; more like getting drooled on by Cujo than anything else. Really, Danny had been through worse.

Billy seemed a bit like Klemper, actually. Friendly and more destructive than he realized since his good intentions didn’t pan out the way he expected. Clearly. Except Billy was way more egotistical than Klemper, on par with Vlad, and acted more like Youngblood than Ember. Not that Ember didn’t cater to her fans, but she drew power from them. Danny wasn’t sure this guy did.

And then there was the whole fact that he could see Danny despite Danny being invisible, and no one besides the three kids had been able to see the other ghost.

Danny knew he hadn’t encountered every possible variety of ghost, but the differences were starting to give him a headache. Why couldn’t things be normal for once?

Oh, right, he was a Fenton. Normal was never going to happen. Not even the Fenton version of normal, which had all kinds of allowances for the supernatural.

Below him, Billy was waving around a red cape at the car and trying to lead it away from the crowd. Good. The three teens— There. Following at a cautious distance. One of them, the girl, broke off and headed into a building. The boys must have discussed something, since only one of them waited for her while the other peeled off to help Billy.

Okay. So. No Tucker. Possessed vehicle. And the ghost who had caused said possession was willing to fix it. That had to be good, right? He could go down there and try to drive the car (not that he knew how to drive), try to fry everything important with an ectoblast, or attempt to ice it in place. Or, y’know, pick it up and throw it in the ocean. Except the last one wasn’t likely to solve the problem in the long term, even though the other three should buy him enough time to deal with it.

Why did these things always happen when he didn’t have a thermos on him?

XXXXXX

“Shanilla’s buying nails!” Spencer yelled as he chased after the car. “But that might not work. You need to get me inside!”

“No problemo, bro!” Billy said, dropping the cape he’d been using to taunt the car. It vanished before hitting the street.

Spencer tried not to think about how many things could go wrong as Billy picked up him and transformed into a slingshot.

This was a terrible idea. Like, a really, really, really bad one. But it was too late for regrets because Billy had released him and he was flying towards the car and flying had been a lot more fun when he’d been a ghost and—

The car was closing its windows so he couldn’t get in.

Spencer threw his arms up in front of him and expected the worse.

Instead, he felt someone catch him. And then he felt the hot leather of the car’s seat beneath him. He blinked. “Wha—?”

“Can you drive?”

Spencer turned his head and stared. There was a kid floating above the passenger seat. A ghost with white hair and green eyes and some kind of black jumpsuit thing and— Why could he see this guy if he didn’t have any of his stuff?

“Look,” the ghost said, “just…brake, okay? That’s the left pedal. Or middle if there’s three. I’m going to try to freeze the car.”

Spencer frowned. “That’ll just make it skid into something.”

“Not if I manage to get it stuck first.” The ghost boy hesitated. “Um, you might wanna buckle up, though. Just in case.”

Wordlessly, Spencer reached over and did up the seat belt. The ghost boy flew out of the car, or at least stopped moving with it and let it move through him. And then it started to get cold, colder than it ever did in Beverly Heights in the winter, and—

Spencer stomped on the brakes.

The wheels locked.

The car started to slide.

Billy made a big show of trying to stop it, and the car passed right through him.

Spencer was turning the wheel, but it did next to nothing to correct his course. Maybe because he didn’t dare take his foot off the brake. It might help, but it might also let the possessed car take control of itself again, and he was whipping around wildly enough as it was on the newly-formed ghost ice.

The car didn’t slow until it had done a full twelve-sixty, and then it lurched to a stop. When his head stopped spinning, Spencer realized Rajeev and Shalina were running towards them—Shanilla with a pack of nails and Rajeev with his video camera. He sucked in a steadying breath and tried to keep his lunch down.

“Bro! That was super chill! You’ve gotta show me how you did that.”

“Deal with the car you possessed first!”

Spencer raised his eyes and saw Billy talking to the new ghost. “I, uh, don’t know how,” Billy admitted.

The other boy rolled his eyes as the car shuddered beneath Spencer, trying to break free. “It’s your ectoplasm. Call it back to you. You can obviously contort your body. It’s…kinda like that. Probably more like shapeshifting. I don’t know. Just…unpossess it.”

The ghost boy walked over to the car, muttering to himself, and shot some more ice out of his hands towards the wheels. Spencer shivered.

The ghost tapped on the window. “Are you okay?”

“I…guess?” He was alive. That counted. But he was shaking too much to undo the seat belt. “I just, uh….”

“Here.” The boy reached through the car door, grabbed his hand, and then pulled Spencer out. Through the door. And then he took him about ten feet away and held him steady on his feet and—

“Wh…why—? I mean, how—? You…you’re…but you’re a….”

“Ghost?” The boy was smirking. “Yeah. You can call me Phantom.”

Original.

Spencer turned his gaze to Billy, who was hovering above the car and poking its hood with one finger like he thought it might try to bite him.

“I’m, ah, a different kind of ghost,” Phantom said. “I don’t have the same powers as your friend. Ghosts are all different, but everyone can do the basics, like intangibility and flying, even the less advanced ghosts.”

“The what?”

“Never mind. If you don’t know about them by now, you don’t need to worry about them. There can’t be too many portals that open here anyway. The one I fell through was probably a fluke or a once-every-hundred-years thing. I mean, that is just my luck.”

What? “Portal?”

“Spencer!” Shanilla and Rajeev were suddenly there, hugging him, and the ghost boy had stepped away and left him sagging in his friends’ arms. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just….” He couldn’t see Phantom anymore. Had he dropped something and not realized it? Had Phantom pulled something out of his pocket? Maybe he’d given something to Spencer when he’d caught him and then taken it back?

“Who’s the new guy?” Shanilla whispered.

Spencer followed her gaze and saw Phantom again. “He calls himself Phantom.”

“Stage name?” Rajeev asked.

Spencer shook his head. “I don’t think he’s a dead celeb.” He was too…normal. “He said he came here through a portal.”

“What portal?” asked Shanilla.

“No clue.”

Phantom had popped the hood of the car, and Billy was floating in the middle of it, neatly cut in half. Spencer had seen Billy pass through things before, no question. He was a ghost; that didn’t take any effort at all. He’d also seen Billy grasp normal objects before, and sometimes move them with his mind, and that seemed to take a bit more concentration on his part.

Phantom seemed more comfortable interacting with the physical world than not. He pointed at the glowing blue engine, and Billy tapped it. The car’s glow swelled for a moment before dimming to nothing, and the engine finally quieted and shut off completely.

“Looks safe now,” Rajeev said, pulling them along towards the ghosts.

“Spencer! You’re safe!” Billy wrapped his arms around him before stepping back and grabbing Phantom, pushing him forward. “You guys need to meet my new fan!”

“Your what?” Judging by Phantom’s expression, he hadn’t expected to hear that coming out of Billy’s mouth, either.

“The one you couldn’t see until I doused him in ectoplasm!” Billy enthused. “I mean, it reacted to him differently than it did you, Spencer, but it still gave him ghost powers!”

“Wait,” Phantom said, “you—?” He looked Spencer up and down. “You have ghost powers?”

“Not anymore. Just when his ecto was in my stomach.”

Phantom made a face. “You ate his ectoplasm?”

“He threw it down my throat!”

“It was a good shot,” Billy agreed. “I don’t know when the rest of my ecto is going to come out of you, but we can have a lot of fun in the meantime!”

“Huh?”

“That’s why they can see you now,” Billy said. “Because they can see me, and you’re wearing my ectoplasm. Most of it, anyway. You’re picking this ghost thing up really fast. Even faster than my main bro over here did.”

Phantom was shaking his head. “No, I’m not, uh, I mean, this isn’t because of you. I mean, the car is, that’s on you, but me…isn’t.”

“Aw, c’mon, bro-man, you don’t need to be shy. I never forget a fan.”

Phantom stared at him. “They can see me because I’m not invisible.”

“And you’re not invisible to them because of my ectoplasm.”

“No,” Phantom said slowly, “this really has nothing to do with you.”

“I saw your eyes change colour and everything,” Billy said. “You just got a colour scheme makeover like Spencer did. Except his clothes didn’t change like yours did. And you got my rockin’ ghost powers. Including that ice thing, which is new. I didn’t know I could do that. How, exactly, did you do that?”

“I thought you said he wasn’t from around here,” Shanilla said, just loudly enough for Phantom and Billy to hear. “Or did I misunderstand what you meant by portal?”

“You didn’t. I don’t even know where here is.”

“It’s the home of the Cobra! Which you know because you’re a fan. I’m the reason you came, isn’t it? Go on, you can admit it. I know how my presence can draw—”

“I don’t even who you are!” Phantom burst out.

Billy pouted. “You don’t need to pretend you’re not the same person for their sake. They’re my bros, man. They’re cool.”

Phantom groaned. He turned to Rajeev and pointed at Spencer’s video camera. “That’s not still on, is it?”

Rajeev handed it to Spencer, who checked it over just to be safe. “No, I never had a chance to turn it on.”

“Good. Keep it off.” Phantom sighed, and a bright ring of light appeared. It split apart and travelled over him in a flash, leaving behind a black-haired boy about their age.

Billy glanced at them. “You can still see him now that the ecto wore off, right?”

“I don’t think it was your ecto,” Spencer whispered. “There’s nothing left behind.”

Billy frowned. “Are you sure?” He started picking through Phantom’s hair, and Phantom just looked resigned.

Shanilla was staring at him. “You do look a lot like Spencer. Not just the haircut, but your clothes—!”

“Of course a girl would notice that,” Rajeev muttered, and Shanilla elbowed him in the gut.

Phantom gave them an uneasy smile. “Yeah, someone else already mistook me for him. Look, this is hard to explain, but, uh, let’s just say I got ghost powers like Spencer did, except they haven’t gone away, and I can control them more now. And I, uh, was travelling, and I got ambushed, sorta, or maybe just attacked, I’m not sure, and then I got thrown through a portal and wound up here. Any chance you can tell me where I am?”

“Beverly Heights,” said Spencer.

“California,” Shanilla added.

“U. S. A.” That earned Rajeev another elbow, this time in the side, and he frowned. “What? He might not know!”

“He speaks English with the same accent, doesn’t he?” Shanilla hissed.

“Oh. Right.”

“It’s fine. I’m, ah, from Amity Park. It’s in Illinois. I just need to figure out how to get back there—”

“I’ll take you!” Billy volunteered. “And you can show me your ice trick and tell me how we can hook Spencer up with some awesome ghost powers and—”

“No, you do not want to go through what I did to get these. Trust me. Especially when it may not work.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I won’t turn down the ride, though.”

Spencer stared at them. “If you’re actually going to do this, Phantom—”

“Danny.”

“Danny. Okay. But if this is going to happen, we need maps first. I’m not sure Billy can navigate—”

“That’s what Otto’s for,” Billy said, waving off Spencer’s concerns.

“You broke your auto-pilot!”

“Pfft, that was in my jet, not my good plane. It’ll be fine.”

“It was barely fine last time!”

“Wait, you have a jet? And a plane?”

“We didn’t have my birthday party on your good plane?” Rajeev looked between him and Billy. “You threw my party on your bad plane?”

“I threw your party on Billy’s jet,” Spencer corrected, “because he didn’t tell me he had a good plane, which is just as well because we basically destroyed the jet.”

“Mmm. Fair enough. So just a small, private party to break in this new plane, right?”

“It’s the good plane, not the new plane,” Billy snapped, “and I am the only one allowed to throw parties on it.”

“We don’t need to throw any parties!” Danny interjected. “I just need to get home. Sooner rather than later. My parents are going to freak. Not to mention my sister and my friends. My cell phone got iced up in the Far Frozen, and I don’t want to try turning it back on yet.”

“What’s the—?”

“It’s a long story. Um, how long do you think it’ll take to get there?”

“The usual flight time is probably about four hours,” Shanilla said.

“And the Cobra’s gonna get you there in half that time! Less! C’mon, ghost-bro, let’s get you at cruising altitude.”

Danny shot a wild look at Spencer. “Do I want to get there in less than half that time?”

“Probably not. But we’ll come with you in case something goes wrong.” At the doubtful look on Danny’s face, Spencer added, “It’s summer. No one’s going to miss us. And then maybe we can hear your story? We’ll tell you ours.”

“And you can show me your ice trick!”

“Not while we’re in the air!” Shanilla shrieked. “One near death experience from flying is enough!”

Billy laughed and grabbed them, whisking them towards the airport before anyone could say anything else.

It was going to be an interesting flight.

[miasswier]

miasswier’s ultimate glee ranking: no 25

25: Diva

Written by: Brad Falchuk Directed by: Paris Barclay

Overall Thoughts: The entertainment value in this episode is fantastic. Part of why it’s so high up in my list is because I genuinely feel it’s one of Glee’s strongest episodes. Something you will already know if you’ve read my previous reviews is that something I greatly value in an episode is how obvious it is that Glee is an ensemble show. Here, we get four fantastic storylines, all of which are given equal screen time. I love when Glee does this, because 1) it means the show isn’t entirely focusing on Rachel and 2) it gives every viewer a little bit of something. Don’t like Kurt and Rachel? That’s okay, because they’re only 25% of the episode. Tired of the Blaine/Tina stuff? All good! It’s just 25% of the episode. Plus, from a subjective point of view, I enjoy all the storylines this episode. Also, no newbies, and no Finchel drama.  So extra bonus for that! Oh, and also, the music is fantastic.

What I Like:

As already mentioned, this episode is divided up into four stories, and they all get equal screen time (or, at least they do a good job of making it seem that way). Unlike “Dream On”, though, which also followed a similar format, this episode manages to include many of its protagonists throughout the stories. I mean, Blaine, Tina, Kurt, Rachel, Brittany, Santana, Sam, Emma, and Finn all get the spotlight, and Sue, Artie and Unique get some moments too. Compare that to just Will, Bryan, Rachel, Jesse, Tina, and Artie with a little bit of Shelby in “Dream On”. It just makes for a stronger episode.

THE MUSIC. I’ll talk about that more later.

Kurt calling Rachel the fuck out, and putting her in her place. As I’ve mentioned before, it can be exhausting sometimes watching Rachel just get everything handed to her time and time again, so its nice to see her lose every now and again.

Rachel is the one who apologizes to Kurt, and not the other way around. Although I do have issues with that final scene between them, I do really appreciate that they didn’t make Kurt apologize for making Rachel see she is not the only talented person in the world. Even though the scene completely revolved around her and making her feel better, Rachel was still the one who said she was sorry, therefore admitting that Kurt was right to knock her down a peg.

In a similar vein, it’s refreshing to see Rachel acknowledge her flaws, and for once actually vocalize that she has a serious problem of putting her ambition before her friendships. It sucks that this doesn’t stick and that by the time she does achieve fame she becomes exactly what she was so afraid of becoming – and unapologetically so.

Kurt is so epically sassy in this episode oh my god. One of my all time favourite Kurt Hummel episodes. The way he so easily destroys Rachel, and her legion of sycophants makes my life.

There’s only like, one scene with them, but I always thought Kurt and Adam were cute.

I really appreciated that they included Rachel telling those two guys that Kurt earned his spot at NYADA just as much as they did. Like I already said, it’s nice when she actually manages to put her friendships above of her ambition.

Emma’s giant-ass wedding to-do list.

“I know Will trusts me, but I’m a Libra. I can’t do this.”

Finn helping Emma out with her wedding stuff, and Emma helping Finn out as well. They make a good team, those two!

The scene at the end where Brittany tells Santana that she isn’t going to break up with Sam. Glee has a really serious problem when they write love triangles, and that is that very often they take away the agency of whoever is being “fought” over (Exhibit A: Jake, Ryder, and Marley). They do that here, but they do include a scene where Brittany takes her agency back. She makes a decision, and she stands by it. Even though season four Brittany drives me up the fucking wall, you can already see the hints of maturity she will gain by season five.

Although most of her actions are questionable in this episode, it is cute that Santana wants to take the job with Sue just to be closer to Brittany.

Sam sticking up for Brittany and their relationship (even if I don’t really understand why given how the events in “Naked” unfolded).

Blaine is the fucking cutest. Don’t even talk to me. When Tina calls him a “precious Tiger Beat shrinky dink” I almost died because what a fucking accurate description of Blaine Anderson.

His little smirk after “Don’t Stop Me Now”, plus his continuous repition of “um, guys can be divas” is the fucking best.

Sam saying he won’t hit a girl always makes me laugh cause like, lmao, bitch thinks he can beat Santana fucking Lopez in a fight.

Tina’s sassy “Don’t even worry about it” after absolutely killing “Hung Up”.

Tina winning the Diva-Off and Brittany shouting “She never wins anything!”

I actually think the Emma and Finn kiss made for excellent shock value.

Tina is in both my likes and dislikes of this episode. As you may have gleaned from past reviews, I’m basically the only person on the planet who actually enjoyed Tina’s take-charge attitude season four onward, and in a lot of ways felt it very merited. I mean, her reaction to seeing Santana show up yet again? It’s fair. She sat in the back of Glee for three fucking years, watching Rachel win solo after solo (and the few she didn’t get go to Mercedes, Santana, and Kurt), and barely complained. Now, it’s her turn. It’s her senior year. And who keeps getting the spotlight? A fucking sophomore, and a girl who doesn’t even attend the school anymore. It’s totally fair that she’s annoyed. It’s fair that she wants to be the girl who kicks down the door and gets what she wants. I think she was completely in her right to act the way she did in this specific regard. However…

What I Don’t Like:

… I hate that the thing she is taking charge of is her desire to be in a relationship with Blaine rather than her desire to be the star of the glee club. Again, I am probably one of the only people who wasn’t annoyed when they first introduced the Tina crushing on Blaine storyline, but by the time I was finished with this episode, I was done. They turned it from “this is something that happens so we want to showcase that” into “I deserve the love of this gay man because I did something he never asked me to do”. Blaine didn’t ask Tina to look after him, and therefore its kind of ridiculous that she would be so upset that he didn’t fall into her arms because of it. Also, she’s acting like he told her to go fuck herself once he got better, which isn’t what happened. He thanked her. He helped her pick out a song. He can be seen very clearly enjoying her performance of “Hung Up”. So why the hell did Glee make Tina act like she somehow deserved his romantic love? She knew he was gay. He literally just reminded her that he was gay and would never be interested in women in this very episode. I hate that they went in this direction with this story, because honestly? It could have been one of their sweetest, most relatable storylines. I mean, who hasn’t fallen in love with someone who can’t love them back? But instead they acted as though Blaine was the bad guy even though Tina literally rubbed vapo-rub on his chest while he was fucking asleep (to this day I have to look away when that scene comes on because it makes me genuinely furious). So like, on one hand I can appreciate what they were doing with Tina’s character, but on the other hand I simply cannot support her behaviour in this episode. It’s absolutely appalling, and the fact that Blaine not only apologizes to her, but asks her to be his date to Will and Emma’s wedding, effectively rewarding her for her terrible behaviour? God, it pisses me off. I’m so glad he blows her off to make out with Kurt in the next episode.

On top of all of that, Tina also makes both homophobic and transphobic comments in this episode. It’s so annoying to dislike Tina in an episode that I otherwise enjoy so fucking much, because she’s legit one of my favourite characters. I just really hate how they dealt with this whole thing.

Sue’s racist comment about Santana’s mom.

Santana and Sam basically taking Brittany’s desires out of the equation by fighting about her via song, as though Brittany dating Sam wasn’t enough indication of who she was going to chose.

While what I said in the above section about the Kurt/Rachel end scene still stands, it has always annoyed me that Rachel threw such a massive fucking pity party after losing literally one competition to her best fucking friend that said best friend – whose entire goal in this episode was to knock her down a peg – has to build her back up and basically say “fuck everything I said before, you’re the most amazing person ever and the world should revolve around you always”. At least he didn’t apologize.

That comment Rachel makes about all of her confidence being built on beating Kurt in “Wheels”. See, this is why I have such a hard time with Hummelberry. What kind of fucked up friendship is built on the foundation of “All of my confidence comes from the fact that I am better than you” like what the literal fuck?!

This isn’t a huge one, but I think the episode would have had stronger shock value if the Finn/Emma scene came after “Girl on Fire”. I think ending on that note would have left the audience with the biggest shock. Having a whole other scene and musical performance after just kind of softens the blow.

Songs:

Diva: Starting off strong with a fantastic group number. Unique kills it, of course, as does Tina. When they first revealed who would be singing this song, I thought Brittany was an odd choice to include, but she honestly sounds fantastic. My only wish is that you could hear Blaine more than you can. Also, I find Kitty and Marley kind of hilarious in this performance, because it’s so obvious that they are not on the same level as the other four. I don’t actually know why they felt the need to include them.

Don’t Stop Me Now: An awesome song, and an awesome cover. It also makes me incredibly happy that Blaine chose this particular song to prove that guys can be divas. It’s not just him that’s the diva, it’s Freddie Mercury as well. Such a fantastic choice.

Nutbush City Limits: This is the only song I’m not so crazy about. I think Santana sounds a bit odd in this song, like its just slightly out of her range and she’s straining a bit too hard to reach it. Also, I know this song is technically considered Rock, but it has a bit too much of a country vibe for me.

Make No Mistake (She’s Mine): I’m not a fan of the actual lyrics of this song, as the two singers are literally fighting about someone who is clearly cheating on both of them. That being said, Sam and Santana sound absolutely fantastic together, and I really enjoy the flow of this song.

Bring Him Home: Another strong song. I think Kurt was way better than Rachel, but that’s just me. My only frustration is that Rachel gets the final note. It feels like she always gets the last say in these things.

Hung Up: This is probably Tina’s strongest solo in the entire course of the show. She absolutely kills it, and the performance is amazing. It’s too bad that there’s such shitty motive behind it, but seriously, this song is amazing.

Girl on Fire: A really strong vocal performance, with a mediocre visual performance. Why was Glee so obsessed with having people sing in the auditorium and in the choir room? The end of it is good, with her finally leaving McKinley behind and going to New York, but the beginning is so lackluster. It’s disappointing considering what an amazing cover of an already amazing song it is.

Final Thoughts: I know there seems to be a lot of negatives in this review considering how high up this episode is on my list, but honestly, its one of my favourites. Obviously there’s stuff I don’t like, but the stuff I do like far outweighs the stuff I don’t. Plus, it’s just a strong episode, even from an objective standpoint.

[redorblue]

The ministry of utmost happiness, by Arundhati Roy

I’ve talked about this book with my book club, and I’ve heard from a lot of people that this book is hard to get into. On the one hand, I understand - if you’re not familiar with the setting and the Urdu vocabulary (like me) it can get confusing, and the amount of names and places and people doesn’t help. But as I’ve been emphatically telling all those people: it is so, so worth it. Yes, it can feel overwhelming sometimes, but you’ll be rewarded with stories (intentional plural) that are as beautiful as they’re heartbreaking, with characters that feel alive and enigmatic at the same time, and (probably) with a whole new picture of modern day India. You obviously can’t expect to learn everything there is to know about a country and a people as big as that from one book - and a fictional one at that - but it provided me with a whole lot of starting points to do my own research. Plus, it’s one of those rare books that leave me with wide eyes and more emotions than my shriveled heart can deal with, so excuse my enthusiasm - both intellectual and emotional.

One of the complaints I’ve heard about this book from people who have actually made it through the first ten pages is that the narrative structure is confusing. Again, yes, I see your point, but I think there’s a reason why the story is so episodic, with narrators appearing out of the blue and mentioning people and events that only get explained much later. Somewhere towards the end of the book (in my paperback version it’s on page 436) Tilo writes a poem that in my opinion is the key to understanding the fractured nature of the book:

“How to tell a shattered story? By slowly becoming everybody. No. By slowly becoming everything.”

The book isn’t coherent in the conventional, easily detectable sense of the word because the story isn’t. It can’t be, what with all the different conflicts and catastrophes and bigotry that it sometimes barely touches upon and sometimes elaborates a bit more. In fiction, we’re used to the characters having smaller social circles than we do: less family, less friends, rarely colleagues, barely any of the everyday acquaintances that most of us just have, without knowing where exactly they came from or any intention of deepening them. One of the three focal characters in this book is a bit like that (although that’s intentional and meant to make a point about her personality), but the other two, to whom belong the most confusing parts of the book have the huge social circle that comes with living in one place for a long time, especially when one of them has a rather colorful personality. Point is, it’s normal that seen from the outside, people’s lives aren’t coherent or easily understandable because they’re suffused with context that doesn’t always get an explanation when it’s handy because sometimes there isn’t one, or it leads to another story that leads to another that leads to yet another... Because in the end, no one is an island, we’re just not used to seeing it in fiction.

The same goes for the conflicts that are touched upon here. There’s rarely an easy explanation or black-and-white sides to be taken (which is not to say that the book doesn’t take sides, because it clearly does, but it shines a light on different views on an issue), and if real-life conflicts don’t work that way, why should a literary representation of one be any different? If you give it enough time to affect enough people, it automatically becomes a “shattered story”, and the only way to make any sense of it at all is by allowing the narrative to adapt to that - to become fractured and messy and told from the eyes of people who come with their own lifestory and everything that entails. Long story short, I think the structure of the book makes a necessary point about the story it tells, adds to its lifelikeness and doesn’t even need to be that confusing - you just have to let it unfold in front of your eyes without getting hung up on every single name you don’t recognize.

Another complaint I’ve heard is that the characters are not relatable, or that they don’t feel like fully developed human beings, and here’s where my sympathy stops. It’s true that there’s rarely any interior monologue or other kind of explanation that explicitly tells you why has done this or said that, but I don’t think it needs to. Through pretty neutral accounts of events and backstory it gives you enough clues to at least make educated guesses (otherwise known as interpretation) about a character’s choices, and to deduct important tenets of their personality. It might not be as satisfying sometimes because you never get the ultimate proof that you guessed right, but where’s the fun in having it all served to you on a silver platter? I think that’s exactly the reason why so many people don’t like main characters - you’re too deep inside their heads, too aware of their logical flaws and mental loops and repetitive insecurities. It’s much more fun if the author leaves a bit of space for the readers to fill in thought processes, and Arundhati Roy leaves a lot of space for that. There’s a lot to unpack here, and I’d love to write about so many of the characters in there, but this has already gotten longer than I thought, so I’ll only talk about my two favourites, Musa and Tilo.

I feel like I have a better grasp on Musa’s character (and also, I fell for him. Hard.), so I’ll start with him. On the surface, his life appears to be nothing but a  string of tragedies, with him as a simple vehicle that the author uses to tell us about how fucked up the situation in Kashmir is. After all, he was pretty much forced into the underground after Amrik Singh made him his newest source of entertainment, and “underground” in this context means that he’ll have to join the rebellion. But I think that is a very superficial view on his character. For me, the two defining aspects of his personality are his sense of justice and his bond to the people and the valley of Kashmir. Sure, he could have fled to some faraway place in India, or elsewhere, kept his head down and hoped that Amrik Singh’s network doesn’t stretch that far. That wouldn’t have been easy, but theoretically doable. In reality, however, going someplace else wasn’t really an option. He’s tried that already with studying in Delhi, and even though he obviously knew how bad the situation was back home, he still chose to return after he graduated because he doesn’t want to live anywhere else. He loves Kashmir and his people with all his heart. So the underground it is - because he can’t bear the injustices done to them, because he owes it to his daughter to be brave, because he can’t run away from his grief and this might be the only way to work through it.

And it takes a toll on him, of course it does. It’s heartbreaking how both he and Tilo remark on how he has become less substantial (smudged, as Tilo calls it) than he used to be, which is such an on-point metaphor for what being in a war (and a pretty hopeless guerilla war at that) does to a person. But in his thought processes and his interactions with Tilo (and briefly with Garson Hobart - I can’t remember his real name for the life of me) show that he’s - maybe not the same person as before, but a person, a complete human being, which is a lot more that what you usually get. I mean, let’s face it: he’s a Muslim in a rebel organisation, which is more than enough to get you labels such as terrorist, fanatic, extremist etc. I was a bit afraid that someone in my book club would call him that, because my reaction would have probably got me banned from the book shop. There are so many instances where you can see how kind a heart he has, how intelligent he is, how caring - and yes, also how much he suffers from seeing his people suffer and how he puts everything he has into make it right, but what’s important here is that it’s not his only defining feature.

(This is the point where I realised that this post was definitely going to be too long. So I split it, with more in-depth analysis of Musa - or rather getting my feelings for him off my chest - here.)

Tilo, on the other hand, is not as easy to grasp because she is presented to the reader as she presents herself to the world - stoic, not exactly talkative, very hard to reach. A lot of that has got to do with how she grew up, in an environment heavily influenced by racism, classism and prudery where her mother felt like the only way she could raise her daughter was to pretend they weren’t biologically related and then adopting her. I guess you could say that such an arrangement is better than growing up in an orphanage, and it could have been a lot less damaging if her mother wasn’t so very concerned about her public image, or so demanding, controlling and condescending. But she was, and the effect that had on Tilo is obvious - she’s someone who “lives in a country of her own skin”, the borders (seemingly) closed off. It’s not that she can’t care for people; it’s obvious that she’s loved Musa for a long time, and that she came to care deeply for Naga and Dr. Azad Bhartiya, even before she adopts Miss Jebeen the Second and moves in with Anjum. Rather, her issue seems to be that she has trouble accepting other people’s feelings towards her and getting attached to anyone. It’s why, for example, her marriage to Naga didn’t work (who, on a sidenote, really got treated unfairly in Garson Hobart’s POV), why she didn’t want to go through with the pregnancy when she came back from Kashmir, or why she didn’t even break things off properly with Naga and just... floated out of his life. To be fair, his family’s racism towards her didn’t help either because I’m pretty sure it stung her more than she let on, but her behaviour fits her overall pattern in interacting with people, so I don’t think that was the main issue.

It’s probably also why her post-university relationship with Musa works so well. They’re both aren’t controlling people, they trust that the other would never hurt them intentionally and they know that their communication works well enough that long-time separation doesn’t shake the foundations of their relationship. It’s a very unique bond they share, one that doesn’t go away from one of them marrying someone else and sleeping with them, even loving them, as Musa did with his wive Arifa. They know what they have, wherever they live and whatever they do. That’s another aspect I loved about the book: it never pits the two women in Musa’s life, Arifa and Tilo, against each other. Not even Tilo is jealous when she learns of Arifa’s existence, she simply trusts that if Musa loved Arifa, Arifa must have been a remarkable person. This is a testament to Tilo’s magnanimity - just because you have attachment issues yourself doesn’t mean that you’d automatically be okay with the person you love starting a family with someone else.

But Tilo knows that she’s not that person (at least not at that point), and although she worries a lot about Musa, she knows that a conventional happily ever after wouldn’t work for them. On the one hand because Musa is so tied up in Kashmir’s struggle for independence - which Tilo wholeheartedly supports - that she would never ask him to give it all up to live a life of safety with her (another thing about Tilo I deeply appreciate). But on the other hand I’m pretty sure it also wouldn’t work for Tilo herself. She’s too aimless, too far away to go through with the whole getting married, settling down, having kids etc. shtick. She needs this kind of open relationship that leaves her her space, that gives her a kind of attachment she can bear. It’s mainly emotional, and the few times a year it gets physical, as in being in the same room, it happens mostly because she decided to come back to Kashmir, with the exception of the few times Musa comes to Delhi. I do think that from her side, things might have been different if Musa had lived longer (after Tilo adopts the baby and moves in with Anjum), but on his side things would still have been the same, and I firmly believe that she’d have stayed true to herself and not asked him to walk away from his cause for her.

Which leads me to the question that has made me reread almost the entire book as soon as I was done the first time: Why did Tilo and Musa break up after university? It’s never said explicitly, but I’m pretty sure that he asked her to marry him, in all probability also to come back to Kashmir with him, and she said no and that was that. I still haven’t found an answer in the text (see, this is what I mean by interpretation being both fun and frustrating), but I have a theory. I think that his belonging, his rootedness in a family, a people and a region, was too much for her, who has never been made to feel like she belonged anywhere, was accepted and appreciated anywhere. In that situation, it wasn’t enough that she loved him and he loved and accepted and appreciated her, because in real life, the love of one man doesn’t magically fix every single one of your issues, even if it is the love of your life. So she refused him. And he, honorable person that he is, didn’t press the issue, stayed true to himself and went back to Kashmir. Where they met again years later, under unimaginably sad circumstances, to rekindle, in their own way, one of my all time favourite fictional romantic relationships.

[ships-sailing-in-the-night]

Fic prompt: Marcus invites Chloe to the fasionable restaurant... to eat fugu fish. She is reluctunt but agrees. Maze learns about it and tells Lucifer.

Here ya go, another one complete! Read below or on AO3 here

A knock on her desk pulled Chloe’s attention away from her laptop and up towards the man standing in front of her. He was tall, handsome, had dark brown hair and bluish-gray eyes.

“Afternoon Chloe.” The man gave her a warm smile.

“Afternoon Lt. Pierce.”

“How many times must I tell you, Marcus is just fine….I was uhh, was wondering if you were doing anything later tonight?”

Chloe pursed her lips and thought for a minute. Dan had Trixie tonight, Maze was just going to be watching porn or something, Lucifer was, bring Lucifer…yeah her night was basically free.

“I’m not doing anything really, I was planning on just relaxing and perhaps watching a movie.”

“Well, there is this really good restaurant on Beverly Grove called Matsumoto. I heard they have really good Fugu Fish there and I was wondering if you would like to join me for dinner there?”

“Ummm…sure, I guess it would be nice to get out for a while.”

“Great, is six o’clock ok?”

“Yep, that’s fine.”

“Alright, I will see you then.” With a smile, he turned and walked away. Chloe thought that having dinner with Lieutenant wouldn’t be too much of a big deal, but she wasn’t prepared for the endless questions that came from Maze when she got home later that night.

         ______________________________________________________

“So you’re going on a date with your boss? To some fancy restaurant? To eat fish that is poisonous and really doesn’t taste that good? And you really think that is more ideal then sitting here and watching Netflix with me?” Chloe looked up from what she was reading on her phone and glared at Maze.

“Maze. First; it’s not a date, second; I’ve never tried Fugu fish so who knows, it might actually taste good, and third; you don’t watch anything that isn’t porn.”

“That’s not true.” Maze folded her arms in defense, but Chloe continued to glare at her.

“…Ok maybe it’s not entirely true, but I do enjoy that show Thrones.

“It’s called Game of Thrones.”

“Yeah that one, there is a lot of sex in that show, and I mean a lot. It is just up my alley. Last night I got to the part where-“ Chloe glanced up from her phone and practically put both her hands over Maze’s mouth.

“Don’t say anything, I haven’t had a chance to catch up on all the episodes!” Maze smirked, before taking Chloe’s hands off from her mouth. There were a couple minutes of silence before Maze broke it.

“Anyway, does Lucifer know about this not so-called-date?”

“No, and for the last time, it isn’t a date. I only agreed because I would like to stay in the good graces of the Lieutenant and I was being nice. I would have felt a little bad if I said no…Still, though, I am not telling Lucifer about it and neither are you.” She pointed a finger directly at Maze’s chest before she started to head upstairs to prepare for the dinner.

Going through her closet she realized she didn’t a lot of nice, dressy clothes for a fancy restaurant. She eventually decided on a blue sundress with tan heels. Both were simple but it looked fancy enough for the restaurant. She didn’t put too much makeup on, just touching up here and there, a little neutral lipstick, and she pulled her hair halfway up. She grabbed her summer clutch and her house key as she headed down the steps. Once she reached the bottom of the steps, Maze gave her a quick once over before huffing and turning on her heel to go back to whatever she was doing. A knock at the door signaled that Marcus had arrived to pick her up. She opened the door and saw him wearing a maroon button down and black suit pants. ‘Hmmm, he went a bit on the casual side too, so I guess the restaurant isn’t that fancy,’ she thought to herself. Smiling she allowed him to lead her out the door and to his car.

“What, no motorcycle this time?” She stated jokingly, knowing he always drove everywhere on his precious bike, sort of how Lucifer would take his beloved jet black Corvette everywhere he would go. Instead, Marcus drove his Acura RLX which was a deep blue color, the rays of the sun bouncing off the exterior.

“I didn’t think you would want to ride a motorcycle in a dress at this time of day. You might get cold.” He offered warm smile before opening the passenger door, allowing Chloe to enter the vehicle. The interior was all black, the seats were leather and faux wood paneling outlined some of the compartments. The drive was about half an hour out of town, in the car they chatted about family, work, cases, all small talk really. After a couple moments of silence, Marcus spoke once more.

“I have to ask about your partner if you don’t mind, how did that even come to be?”

“Well, a friend of his was murdered outside of his club. He was the only witness to the murder so I asked him a couple of questions about the victim.” She started to laugh thinking about their conversation.

           ______________________________________________________

“Lucifer Morningstar…is that a stage name or something?” Surely he was joking, out of all the names he could have picked he chose the Devil’s name”….…“God-given, I’m afraid.”……”You like to play cop do you?“…….”No, I just like to play in general detective, what about you?” Man, if looks could kill, and his smile….

        ______________________________________________________

“Aaaannnnd, so how did a club owner named after the Devi go from club owner to civilian consultant?”

“Well, he kept interfering with the Delilah murder so I let him stick around. Together we were able to get the clues to find the murder and put him behind bars…well, or a psychiatric hospital…but yeah. He kept helping me with cases so I put a request in to make him an official consultant of the LAPD.”

“Psychiatric hospital? It seems like a majority of our suspects end up going mad after they a have a quick one-on-one chat with him.”

“Perhaps, but his way gets results, even if it’s not always the most conventional or legal way.”

         ______________________________________________________

They didn’t have to wait long because Marcus had put in a reservation for them for two at six o’clock. The young waiter led them to their table, the table had a blue cloth draped over it with a small vase containing shells and a candle. The atmosphere was a little on the dark side, but the aquariums surrounding the floor brightened up the room a bit. Not too long after an older woman, looking to be in her mid 40’s approached the two.

“Here is your menu, as you might have known our specialty is the Fugu Fish, it is served it a corn hash and a small side salad. This page here shows you our other fresh fish and seafood options. Can I start you two off with something to drink?”

“We would like two glasses of your house red, please,” Marcus told the waitress, whose name tag read Samantha.

“Alright, I will bring you some bread and your drinks should be out shortly.” After writing the order down Samantha turned and left to head towards the kitchen.

“So…” Marcus began.

“What made you want to move to LA? You don’t seem like the big city type of guy.”

“Well, let’s just say LA served up an opportunity for me that I just couldn’t resist. Though I suppose you are right though, I prefer to live in the country. I lived in Colorado for most of my life, I started working in the police department, helping with paperwork mostly in college, and then after graduation, I joined the academy. Then a couple of months ago, something came up and I was offered the opening for Police Lieutenant of the LAPD, so I packed everything and left to move here.” Marcus rested his chin on both of his fisted hands, his elbow’s leaning on the table in front of him.

Samantha returned shortly after with their drinks and some fresh rolls. She placed the bread and glasses of wine down on the table before pulling out her notepad once more.

“Do you two know what you would like to have tonight?”

“I believe we would both like to try the Fugu fish tonight.” He smiled up at Samantha while handing both his and Chloe’s menu to her.

“Alrighty, I will go ahead and put the order in so the cook and get started on it right away. It will take some time but I’ll make sure that as soon as it is done it will be headed your way.” Closing her notepad and grabbing the menus she turned and headed towards the kitchen once more. While waiting for their food, Chloe and Marcus snacked on the bread that was provided while continuing in light conversation.

      ______________________________________________________

“The detective is going to each something called Fugu fish with Lt. Pierce?”

“Yep, she said it wasn’t a date, she just ‘wanted to look good for her boss’.”

“Hmmm, well the Detective is free to do and have dinner with however she pleases, that is the whole concept of free will. Being able to decide what you do and don’t want to do and have control over your choices. It wouldn’t be my place to advise her otherwise.”

“I know, I know, I just thought I would let you know seeming that you don’t like this Marcus very much.”

“I’d take the douche any day over the Lieutenant any day.”

“Alright, I gotta start the next episode of Thrones now otherwise I won’t be able to finish it before Chloe get’s home, and you know how she hates it when I watch it while her child is in the house.”

“Fine, I have to take care of a few things down in LUX anyway, thank you for the information Mazikeen.” Lucifer hung up his cell phone and slipped it back into his pants pocket. He checked his refrigerator to see how many ingredients he had in case the detective decided to drop by later that night for a snack.

        ______________________________________________________

About three hours later Lucifer heard his elevator ding, perhaps one of the Brittney’s was coming up to entertain him. He was about to ask them to leave when he saw a rather familiar face. A smile appeared on his face as he headed toward his kitchen.

“Let me guess, not your type of fish?”

“You could say that. The Fugu was alright, but I am definitely more of an Italian restaurant type of girl than a seafood restaurant person. It was too dark and Marcus just told me all about his days on the farm.”

“Sounds boring if you ask me.” He then headed to his freezer and pulled out two tubs of ice cream, both different flavors. With the ice cream tubs in his hands, he asks,

“Care for some dessert if you are not already too full?”

Chloe smiled and placed her jacket on his bar countertop, she had gone against ordering dessert at the restaurant because all she really wanted to do was to go back home. Fancy, poisonous-if-not-cooked-properly-fish, was not something she would want to eat again in a long time. She used the excuse that the salad had filled up most of her appetite and that she didn’t have much room for the fish. She only ate probably half of the fish and all of her corn hash.

“I think I saved enough room.” She grabbed one of the tubs of ice cream from his hand and headed over to grab two bowls from his cabinet. They spent the night, eating ice cream, chatting and watching a movie on Netflix; Chloe’s definition of a perfect night.

Thanks for the prompt! :)

[canaryatlaw]

okay, so it’s obviously later than I’d like it to be, but I still have a bit to talk about so we’ll see where this goes. Last night was WEIRD, I have no idea what was going on, but I eventually fell asleep sandwiched between two heating pads, one for my back and one for my stomach. when I woke up I felt fine though, so that was good. but since last night’s post was super short, I’m going to recap three things I would’ve mentioned had I made a full post. so, number one. I was on the train home from class and there was a woman on it with 3 small children, and one of them was upset for whatever reason, he was probably about 3 or so, so that can happen easily. but the mom was like, just getting in his face and yelling at him and like, I felt super uncomfortable with that, because it’s something abusive parents do frequently. I can’t tell from that alone that she is abusive of course but it wasn’t a good sign. so this poor little boy who had just been screamed at by his mom is forced to sit next to me while crying hysterically, and the entire train car is like, awkward silence, not knowing what to do. I paused my podcast and tried to talk to him a little, see if I could get him to calm down, but he was intent on crying and continued to do so. I felt bad for him. Like, on the one hand, everyone’s kid has meltdowns in public. it’s the reality of raising a small child. but I don’t think it’s ever justified to be screaming in the face of your 3 year old. As they were getting off she grabbed his face again and said something along the lines of “if you keep this up you’re going to get a spanking” and he had already stopped crying at this point, so that really didn't help, and while corporal punishment is still somewhat accepted in society I do think it’s child abuse (not that I would call the hotline about someone spanking their kid, but I think it’s morally wrong to hit your child in any way, ever). And of course it’s a situation where there’s nothing I can do. I have no idea who these people are, and even if I thought there was cause to call the child abuse hotline (which I wouldn’t think there was from this incident alone) I have no idea what their names are or where they live, so it would've been entirely pointless. so I just ended up feeling really frustrated, but also knowing these kind of incidents have had a very strong impact on me over the years, making me want to stand up for kids without a voice. so that happened. I got home and watched Legends, which I thought was a totally kickass episode. I loved loved loved Sara putting Rip in his place when he’s been treating the legends like shit all season and totally deserved it. I have literally zero sympathy for him because he brought this all on himself. The actual plot was kind of strange, but it worked mostly, and Zari’s stuff was great. I feel like Nate and Mick’s characterizations have been very thin so far this season, Nate is a lovable (sometimes) idiot and Mick just wants to kill things- clowns, vampires, you name it, he wants to kill it. so I was less than enthused about that. But yeah, overall good episode. Okay, last one from yesterday and then I’ll get to today (I say after I’ve already typed this whole thing). My dad had called me while I was watching legends and I let it go to voicemail because I didn’t want to stop watching the episode haha but after it was over I called him back. I had emailed him a draft of my cover letter for the district attorney’s office asking for feedback, but my brother got included in the loop because according to my dad he probably has a better idea being that he actually works for the office, but my brother is also an emotionally abusive jerk and just continued to rag on me while my younger brother egged him on saying things like “yeah, bitch” from the background. And like, I can’t really explain why, I guess I just got really triggered, because it set me off so badly. I hung up the phone and cried for a few minutes. But now I’m just really doubting if I should go back to NY after school. I don’t want to disappoint my parents, and they REALLY want me to come back, but I’ve made it clear that under no circumstances will I be moving back into their house because being there for long periods of time compromises my mental stability and I’m not fucking playing. So I don’t know what to do there. sigh. Okay, so actually today now. I woke up at 7:55 and went to PT, and felt accomplished for actually getting out of bed early two days in a row for doctors appointments that I could’ve technically put off but didn’t. That was good, I came back briefly and grabbed my things, then headed down to therapy. My therapist is definitely growing on me, we’re still kind of in that weird stage of getting to know each other but it’s been going pretty well so far. I told her about last night of course and everything that happened, and she was pretty horrified by all of it, and definitely said I should not move back there no matter what. So from there I went to the DV clinic, checked in and waited for a little bit (tried to do some reading for class tonight but mostly ended up talking to the 1L’s) and got a case. Again, won’t get into details, but it wasn’t a terribly strong case, it was mostly based on somewhat threatening text messages and him showing up at her house once, which isn’t exactly the best formula to get an OP (I usually say the golden cases are those with recent physical violence, and that the client doesn't have a criminal history otherwise the judge won't think they’re credible). But we filed, and ended up on the 4th floor with a judge I like a lot. He ended up denying the emergency, which I wasn’t surprised about, because it really could’ve gone either way. It was mostly because there weren’t any recent threats and of course no violence. the main concern was really him running off with their infant daughter, which he’s threatened to do in the past several times, but they’re currently in divorce court so they can handle custody and all that, so it shouldn’t be an issue for much longer. We got to see some of the case after us, and it was a physical violence case so of course the criminal judge asked if she filed criminal charges, and this poor woman was trying to explain to the judge the crazy things the cops told her she had to do in order to get charges filed, and I could just see the judge getting more and more irate and she went on, and he was eventually just like “I’ll be right back” and literally stormed off the bench. We had to go before he came back sadly, because I would’ve liked to have seen what had happened there; I get the feeling it would be very entertaining. I love no bullshit judges like that. Anyway, so I left the DV clinic and ended up meeting up with my friend at the same bar we were at last Wednesday, so I got a burger and we hung out until we had to go to class, so that was nice. Adoption law was fine, I ranted a little about a case where the parents were literally the *worst*, so that’s always fun. Headed home and decided to watch Riverdale because it was the only recorded show I had that I was caught up on. I’m not sure how I feel about the super dark Betty storyline they’re going with this season, like it honestly seems really creepy, which I’m sure is the point, but like, it’s not in a good way. so I don’t know where I think that’s going. Afterwards I watched an episode of Brooklyn 99, which never fails to be hilarious. And yeah, not long after that I got ready for bed, and that’s about it, so after that giant information dump I’m going to head to bed, because it’s 1:23 am right now. Goodnight babes. Stay gorgeous.

[chargenovasmash]

Six Drink Sara (Pt. 3)

(Yet ANOTHER installment handcrafted by the ever-brilliant @pathfindersemail and myself, featuring Sarianna Ryder, Puck, and a whole lot of nausea and exhaustion.  It’s long, ~2800 words, but it’s cute, and there’s no puking this time.)

Pathfinder, the morning shift is beginning.

Sara’s half-embarrassed realization that SAM had never needed to say those words to her before was quickly overtaken by intense throbbing pressure in her head.  No amount of burying her face in pillows would alleviate the intense pain she should have expected, if she was being completely honest with herself, from last night’s attempt to escape an entirely different kind of pain.  With the sort of heavy groan one gives when their body fully refuses to cooperate, Sara managed to spill off of the bed like a viscous fluid.  She jammed the heels of both hands into her forehead as she rose to her feet far more quickly than she should have, sucking the air around her in through gritted teeth.

The decently low lighting of the Tempest’s lower deck felt garishly bright as Sara staggered out of her quarters, still groaning, hugging the wall and using one hand as a visor.  Someone already had coffee on in the galley; a straight walk there and back was all the pathfinding she felt up to in her current condition. 

“Well.  You look like hell.”

Normally, the silken flange of Vetra Nyx’s voice was a comfort - a relief, even.  Now, it served only to increase the tempo of the pulsing ache in her head, and it didn't help that Sara knew the turian’s observation was an objective truth.

“Thanks,” she huffed, carefully turning to face her friend and forcing her eyes into a glower she hoped appeared more unamused than completely miserable.

“Rough night?”

“You could say that.”

Vetra breathed an amused chuckle, and offered Sara a cup of coffee.  “How much did you drink?”

“Too much.”  The aroma swept into her nose as she cradled the Initiative-branded mug in her hands, and for just a moment she felt a bit of the shifting in her stomach ease.  Just a bit, though.  

“Ugh, I don't ever want to even see alcohol again.”

“I'll tell Liam to hide his beer stash, then.”

The laughter came before Sara was ready for it, and the lingering queasiness returned soon after.  A quick sip of coffee quelled the waves in her stomach for the moment, but the calm was short lived.  Soon after taking in the soothing warmth of the caffeinated beverage, a throbbing gnawed at her temples, as if to remind her of a very obstinate headache.  

“How'd I get back here, anyway?”

“Guy from the docks brought you up.  Said someone else walked off the lift from the slums with you over their shoulders and dropped you off in the bay.”

Vetra’s narration, however sparse, prompted enough of a recollection that seemed to worsen the lingering headache.  The sound of a strange yet coaxing voice and the burning in her throat flashed through her head in incomprehensible episodes.

“You...really don't remember?”  

Sara let her eyelids rest briefly while she slowly turned her head ever so slightly from side to side, confirming Vetra’s suspicions in the least nauseating way possible.

“I must've blacked out.  But…”

She scrunched her nose in that telltale sign of focused contemplation, mulling over the strewn about pieces of her memory.

“What?”

“It's probably nothing,” she said, punctuating her dismissal with a cautious sip, “but I had the weirdest dream.”

Puck kept herself busy while waiting for the Pathfinder to come to by rehearsing all of the most vulgar ways she could think of to tell Reyes to deal with his own spurned lovers from now on.  Although, ‘spurned lovers’ wasn’t that accurate of a term, now that she thought about it, especially not in this case.  Truthfully - and the breadth of knowledge she possessed regarding her friend’s personal life nearly caused Puck to start dry heaving herself - almost none could be considered ‘lovers’ at all; Reyes had mastered the art of honeyed words and bedroom eyes, but most of his famed ‘trysts’ involved little more than a few drinks and some god awful lines, and never made it past Umi’s door.  

Not her, though.  Of course, it had to be Sara Ryder that actually got to him.

Propped in a heap against the wall next to her, Sara let out a lazy groan in her sleep.  It was a faint but nonetheless sure sign she was alive, but Puck had to make sure of more than that.  She lodged a forefinger against the Pathfinder’s cheek, letting her head fall limply to the side.

Out like a candle.

As far as Puck was concerned, there was only good news to be had from the “mission.”  For one, if Sara came back to her crew in less than “safe” conditions, it wasn’t anyone but the alcohol’s fault - least of all hers.  And two, taking her back at that moment was as safe as it was going to get.

With a gruff sigh, Puck shifted in preparation to carry all that dead weight over her shoulder.  

“Well, Beans, it’s now or never.”

She wasn’t quite sure where the ultimatum came from, nor did she have the slightest idea in hell why, in the most opportune moment she’d had in a shitshow of an evening, she stalled.  What was certain, however, was the hint of relief - a slow, liberating weightlessness of being able to say the name out loud.  It was enough to distract her, and she held fast, even for just another moment, to that intensely satisfying rush of being able to talk to her cousin again.

Standing there before her unconscious figure, Puck realized hauling her to the docks in this condition would be much easier than having to drag Sara back to her ship kicking and screaming. Now, their ill-gotten moments of quiet afforded her some time to think, and thinking always led to dangerous things.

“Shit, if you hate him,” Puck began with an aloof shrug of her shoulder, “then you must hate me.” The last word faded off with the drone of her helmet’s voice changer.

Sara answered with a yawn, a move that nearly wrought havoc in Puck’s otherwise calmly aloof demeanor. To her relief, Sara merely shifted to her side as her mouth hung slightly agape - sure signs that she remained ever so deeply asleep.

Patience never was Puck’s strong suit.  Especially not when she had an itch, as was often the case when one was constantly covered head to toe in armor, and a perfect way to scratch it stared her right in the face.  

“Lot of shit’s going on right now.  You probably wouldn't believe me, but I’d tell you everything right now if I could.”  Ever incapable of taking anything too seriously, her head hung low in a soft chuckle.  “I bet you'd have the most ridiculous dumbass look on your face when you see it's me.”

She would end the speech there, but the caveat of such a reality quickly caught up with her.

“Well, if you don't try to kick my ass first.”

Now that they - or at least she - started, it proved harder to stop.  Whatever tension was there eased with the breeze that so rarely swept through a quiet evening in the slums, and she added an abrupt grunt to the wind as she unceremoniously plopped down on the ground.  Sitting next to her cousin, Puck couldn’t miss the irony of it all.  It was always Sara who needed a good listener, and it was her cousin who would lend an ear.  Now, she relished the reprieve granted by their reversed roles.  Puck, the inexplicably open book; and Sara, the good, albeit unconscious, listener.

“Remember that spot in the Wards on the Citadel where I used to smoke?  Where we used to go watch the ships and talk shit all night when shit got rough?  When your dad was being a colossal dick,” - she ended the last question with a bit of a grunt, nudging Sara with another brush of her knuckle as if it would help her remember - “or when the boy you liked didn't like you back?”

Puck laughed quietly to herself, forcing the corners of her mouth apart and the air out of it, as if doing so would make enough space to keep the supremely annoying welling of tears from escaping as well.  

“You always cried too fucking much.”

The lack of an answer bought her time to ponder the dingy if not altogether lackluster beige of the alleyway.  Wedged in the second level between a shanty store and Tartarus itself, their platform overlooked much of the slums’ squalor.  Sure enough, Puck was used to much greater heights; the kind that only two scrawny kids with the requisite agility and stubbornness could climb.  And instead of the beige blah of the poverty surrounding them, there was the sleek black neon of Zakera Ward.  Tall enough to watch the transporters whistle by with barely a care, and dark enough so no one would see where they hid past curfew.  Yet even in their more modest setting, she couldn’t help but feel just as invisible - invincible, even.  In Kadara, they had nothing but drunkards staggering home and the still-burning glow of a red giant in their horizons.  Somehow that felt safe enough, if not just as safe as being home again.  

“Reyes...he told me what you said to Zia about him, that he's a better man than she thought.”  “Heh, well coming from her that's not really saying shit, but you…”

Puck inched closer to her ever-dreaming listener out of the sudden concern that, perhaps, Sara might fall over without the support of her shoulder.   Looking over the damsel in question, she couldn’t help but glance askance over the formidable Pathfinder. Fast asleep, she looked almost calm if not for the twitchy wrinkle of her nose.  Sara’s face contorted as a result, and with that Puck suppressed what would normally have been a bellowing guffaw.  It was precisely the sort of forbidden moment she planned on remembering for herself, if only to allow herself the luxury of a secret.  

Reyes must enjoy these moments with her, too - not this precisely, or so she hoped, but similar little things.  Sara made some pretty entertaining faces when flustered or nervous, and Puck felt a sharp pang of resentment at her friend for missing this.     

“I don't know if he really loves you or not, Beans, but...I think he wants to.  You're something to him.  He's never gonna say it, that's...not his style.  With him, it's all about the little things.  He’s always got that shit-eating grin on his face, but it's softer when he talks about you.  He asks me to drag a lot of people out of bars for him, but he's only ever asked me to keep you safe.”

“So...don't hate him, okay?”

A reply would've been nice.  For fuck’s sake, the one time Puck wanted Sara to talk to her...

“And please don't hate me either.”

A groan answered her this time.  “Nnng… who…?”  Sara turned her head before she had the strength to lift the lid of her eyes.

Shit.  Shit, shit, shit.

A heavy furrowing of her brows brought a distorted crease over Sara’s features.  She woke with a bellow of a moan, barely able to stretch her still comatose limbs.  A quick turn of her head, and the languid expression of her face very quickly turned to that of exasperation.  

“Hey. Drink this.”

The Pathfinder’s eyes narrowed into tiny slits, and she put forth her best effort into a wobbly, skeptical backwards lean of her head.  Instead, a nagging migraine tipped the weight of her head over, sending it gently down onto Puck’s armor-clad shoulder.   “Where am I?”

“Same place.”  Through pitiful moans of protest, Puck shifted her shoulder so that Sara’s head was as close to upright as it was going to get.  She offered the flask again, with a bit less compromise this time.  “Drink some water.”

After staring back for an awkwardly long time with a slight curl of her upper lip, Sara reluctantly complied.  

“Heh,” she mused as she lowered the flask from her face, “my sixth drink for the night.”

“Finally.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Anyway, can you walk, or am I gonna have to carry you?”

A slow roll of laughter rumbled from her lips.

“What’s so funny?”

The laughter devolved into something of a choking sob. “I don’t… I don’t think I can.”

Puck’s eyebrow twitched in a suppressed groan beneath her mask.

The earlier forebodings of her tears came out in full force, as if Sara had suddenly remembered the very crux of her woes.  “He was supposed to come back. It’s been days!”

Her compassionate savior answered with a protracted silence.  “Tough shit. He isn’t here.”

“Yeah,” Sara shrugged.  “But you are.”

Even in that salt-soaked sardonic tone, even if Sara didn't know who she was really saying them to, those words from her lips pulled a reluctant but wide smile across Puck’s face.  

“Trust me, it’s good that he sent me.  It's not like he couldn't have gotten someone else to do it.  I only get called in for the really important shit, so, you know...take that however you want.”

Sara took the confession with a bemused sigh and a slight roll of her eyes.  Puck would have said more, but the Pathfinder seemed to take to her own guarded reticence as she withdrew further into herself.  With knees pressed firmly against her chest, a wistfulness overtook her temperament in the moments that followed.  

“I’m really tired.”

Having known Sara a bit more than most, Puck was more than tempted to offer up one last-ditch effort to be done with it all: to fling her cousin back over her shoulders and plop her back down on her ship.  But it was precisely the sort of indignity a Ryder would never suffer (much less someone as proud as Sara), so she settled instead to play at being therapist, if only for a moment.

“You know, if he’s such an asshole… why sit around waiting for him?  Why bother with him at all?”

The question struck something of a chord.  

“I don’t know,” she continued. “He just doesn’t seem your type.”  

Puck risked the observation, and she was met with what at least seemed like Sara’s tacit acceptance.  Much to her surprise, the question didn’t come up:  how could she know what was her type, if she had one?  It didn’t matter anyway. She was still in love with Reyes, and he was still not there.

“Maybe,” she countered with an unexpected hint of resignation. “But I know he needs me.”  If Sara had been less tired, no doubt a smile would have followed those words.  Instead she lifted her head enough to stare directly through Puck’s helmet with a newfound air of haughty resolve. “And I like feeling needed.”

“Don’t we all.”

Another yawn rolled from her lungs - wide and seemingly unending with the way she stretched her head back against the wall.  The heaviness in the air seemed to weigh down on her, for soon her face relaxed back into a dreamlike calm before her eyes slowly fluttered to a close.  It only took a few moments before the slowed rhythm of her unconscious breathing motioned the rise and fall of her shoulders.  

“You're right, though, Beans.  He does need you.”

Puck shifted ever so slightly, careful not to wake her tired cousin.  With her arms freed, she released the airlock keeping her face safe behind its previously impenetrable facade, and wrestled her head from the cracked confines of her helmet.  The chill of the air and the lingering waft of Kadara’s detritus made the very prospect of breathing less worthy of the effort.  Still, she was with family now, and the impulse to leave something of a memento, however transient, presented itself.  Regina May Park, finally exposed to the full scrutiny of her cousin's presence and Kadara’s night air, planted a slight and ever so careful kiss between Sara’s brows.

“And so do I.”  

Six hundred years and a new galaxy was all it took, apparently, to feel at home again.

“That's...hmm.”  Vetra propped her hand over her waist, letting her eyes wander off to the floor in piqued contemplation.

“Yeah,” Sara replied.  She ran a timid hand over the back of her neck.  “It’s stupid.”

She tried to ponder the blurry pieces left in her headache-ridden mind, but by the way the very veins in her head throbbed, it proved too much of an ordeal.  Sara let out a tired breath.  Somehow, she’d have to find a way to shake off all of last night’s aches.

“Let’s...let’s just get out of here.  I think...I’ve had enough of Kadara for a while.”

[geckogirl89]

Silver Screen Surprise

Written for Prompt #74 on @cutiepieprompts: Muse A and Muse B are watching a movie together, when suddenly an unexpected sexy/sexual scene comes on, causing extreme awkwardness between them, as they are crushing on each other but not yet together. (The fic is more “unexpected romantic scene.”)

The movie the group is watching is based on the “Action Husbands” series by @boazpriestly, which you can read more about here. The name of the movie was chosen by a name generator here.

Fandom: Hawaii Five-0 (2010) Pairing: Steve/Danny Rating: T (some light cursing) Word Count: 2585 Notes: Set after 7.10 since events from that episode are mentioned. Also, for the purposes of this story, Steve and Danny are conveniently single.

It was a Friday evening after a long week, and the team planned to watch a movie together. Kono had been telling Lou about how the group watched CHiPs together one time and the hilarious argument Steve and Danny had about which one of them would be Ponch, and Lou had remarked that he had never watched TV with the team at the office. Therefore, the team decided to make a night of it. Steve, Danny, Kono, and Lou were waiting for Chin to come back with a movie that he wanted to rent from Redbox.

Lou had made a bunch of popcorn for everyone, and Danny asked him to serve a portion for two people in a larger bowl. He raised his eyebrows slightly, but he gave Danny a large bowl of popcorn.

Danny and Lou returned to the table, where Kono and Steve were waiting for them. Lou sat down next to Kono and gave her an individual bowl of popcorn and kept the other for himself. Danny put the smaller bowl of popcorn in the empty seat next to him and sat down next to Steve, scooting his chair closer until it was pressed up against Steve. Steve put his arm around the back of Danny's chair, and Danny put the popcorn between them where they could both easily reach it. Danny took a bite of their popcorn and leaned against Steve's side as much as he could while they were sitting in separate chairs.

“What?” Steve asked. He sounded tense, and Danny glanced up at Steve and noted that his face was set in a worried frown.

Danny turned his attention to Kono and Lou, who were staring at them with wide eyes. Kono's shock melted away to be replaced by that amused expression she had sported when she caught Danny touching Steve's lower back in Steve's office. There had been a completely plausible explanation for why Danny had been touching Steve like that, but Kono had not been there for the conversation that would give Danny's actions context. To Kono, it probably looked like Danny had been coming on to Steve.

Which was totally not what this was. Steve and Danny always ended up snuggling or leaning into each other when they watched movies together and had ended up laughing and talking to each other even when they went on that double date with their girlfriends Cath and Gabby. It was just a little quirk of theirs, and it was completely innocent.

At least on Steve's part, because Steve was straight and had no idea that Danny was hopelessly pining away for him. And hopefully he would never know. Danny knew he could never have more with Steve, and he wanted to keep Steve's friendship, free from the drama that might occur if Danny ever revealed his true feelings.

If Danny got an occasional guilty pleasure tingle up his spine from Steve doing things because he lacked companionship that would read differently to most people (like cuddling him during a movie), there was nothing wrong with that.

Danny ignored Kono whispering something to Lou and the amused looks on both of their faces and gestured with the popcorn bowl to Steve. “You want some of this, babe?”

Steve gave him a fond, close-lipped smile and took a handful of popcorn. “Thanks, Danno.”

Chin entered the room and raised his eyebrows slightly when he saw the way Steve and Danny were sitting before he shook off his surprise and turned to the group. “I got the movie, Maximum Justice.”

Danny recognized the title because he had seen some promos for it in the theaters. It looked like an entertaining buddy cop action film starring Vin Diesel and The Rock, but Danny had never actually seen it.

“I was thinking about seeing that, but I never got the chance when it was out in theaters,” Kono said.

“Me neither,” Chin said. “That's why I thought it would be a good one to rent.”

“Samantha told me she saw it with her boyfriend when it came out,” Lou said. “She said that it was... interesting.”

There seemed to be a significant weight to the word Lou used, interesting. But maybe Danny was just being paranoid. It had been a fairly tough week for all of them. Maybe watching this movie would give Danny a chance to relax.

He quickly got absorbed in the storyline and characters, which were well-developed for an action movie. He could kind of relate to the Vin Diesel character, Andy, who had a daughter, Cynthia. Thirty minutes into the movie, the movie revealed that Cynthia was transgender in a low-key way Danny hadn't been expecting.

“Huh, it's nice they added that to the movie,” Chin said.

Danny nodded and glanced around the table. Everyone, including Steve, seemed impressed by that. He rested his head against the back of Steve's arm, which had drifted down slightly from its position on the top of Danny's chair, and continued to watch the movie.

As the movie continued, Danny kept wondering when one of the guys’ girlfriends would show up. In a lot of these buddy cop movies, at least one of the guys would have a wife or girlfriend, even though the focus of the movie was on the partnership and the friendship between the two men.

That friendship was obviously close, if the “bickering like an old married couple jokes” the guys kept getting from other characters were any indication. They did argue somewhat, since The Rock's character, Matt, was more of a risk-taker and Andy was more of a guy who preferred to do things by the book, but they were constantly smiling at each other and giving each other casual touches. In between the action sequences, the film showed the two characters hanging out and doing stuff together outside of work. They had special nicknames for each other and inside jokes, and they generally just seemed thrilled to be in each other's company.

“These guys kind of remind me of Steve and Danny,” Kono said.

This was what his relationship with Steve would be like if he wasn't a pathetic, pining idiot, Danny thought. It's how it appeared to outsiders, anyway. Danny reached his hand forward in the popcorn bowl and stilled when he felt the back of his hand brushing against Steve's. He swore that he could feel static electricity between them, and his heart was racing just from the way Steve's hand was barely touching his.

Steve's hand had frozen in the bowl, and he was gazing down at Danny with an expression Danny couldn't interpret.

Danny withdrew his hand from the bowl and chuckled feebly. “Sorry.”

Steve blinked and took out another handful of popcorn. “Don’t worry about it.”

Steve sagged in his seat and sighed as if he was deeply disappointed about something. Danny couldn't make heads or tails of Steve’s behavior.

The climax of the movie approached, and Matt was pacing as he worked with a team that included the other cops who had been featured in the movie to deal with a situation in which the main villain of the film was holding a group of people hostage. Andy and Cynthia were included in that group.

Steve's hand tightened on Danny's shoulder, and Danny wondered if Steve was thinking about the winter formal, when Danny and Grace had been held hostage at Grace's school. He glanced up at Steve's face to see that he was intensely focused on the movie.

Finally, the team of cops was able to storm the warehouse where the hostages were being kept. Matt immediately sought out Andy and Cynthia. The daughter rushed forward to hug Matt, which reminded Danny of how Grace and Steve had hugged once all of the terrorists were gone at that dance.

Matt stepped over towards Andy, and they embraced each other in a meaningful way. The hug lasted for a really long time, but Danny just chalked it up to the heightened emotions from the situation they had just been in.

“I was so worried,” Matt said. He pulled away slightly, but his hands were still resting on Andy's shoulders.

Andy glanced down at Matt's shoulders, and he released a deep sigh. “When that guy was holding a gun on all of us, it made me think of all the things I wish I had done with my life. My biggest regret was not telling you this...” Andy paused before gazing right into Matt's eyes. “I love you, Matt.”

“Whoa!” Kono exclaimed. “What's happening right now?”

Lou grinned and shook his head. “Just keep watching.”

Matt was stroking Andy's cheek with his hand, and Danny was starting to feel just as confused as Kono was. Matt's grin was lighting up his entire face. “I love you, too.” And then they started... kissing?

Danny's mouth hung open in shock while Lou burst into laughter. Apparently, Lou had been spoiled for this particular twist. Danny thought Kono might react first, but instead it was Steve, who began coughing.

Shit, is he choking?! Danny patted Steve's back roughly. “Are you all right?”

Steve coughed a couple of more times and nodded. “I'm fine.” His voice was hoarse, but, otherwise, he seemed to be okay. “I just picked a really bad time to eat popcorn.”

“Yeah, but I don't think you could have planned to see Vin Diesel and The Rock making out on screen,” Kono said with an enormous smile. "Not that I object at all.”

Danny looked back at the screen to see that the two actors were indeed, still kissing. And really selling it, too. The whole thing looked very passionate and emotional. At least until one of the background characters told Matt and Andy to get a room.

“Man, I hate that guy,” Steve said.

Danny stared at his partner with wide eyes. Was he enjoying seeing the two main characters make out or something?

It's probably not that. Danny watched as Andy suggested that he and Matt go home. The couple left the scene with Andy's daughter.

Lou grinned. “Aww, well that's just cute. Look at them acting like an adorable little family.”

Danny's heart raced in his chest. The couple and the daughter resembled how he and Steve had been after the end of the dance.

The next scene definitely did not resemble him and Steve after the dance. According to a brief title screen, it was the next morning, and the camera did a slow pan to reveal the two characters in bed. Together. And shirtless, with a sheet below their waists, which suggested that the viewer was supposed to assume that they were naked.

All they were doing was kissing, and Danny felt like goosebumps were forming on his arms. He had watched a romantic comedy with Steve before and they had seen The Notebook together on the couch that one Halloween, but this felt different. Both of the couples in those movies had been a man and a woman, but it felt so much more suggestive to have two men kissing on screen while Steve's arm was wrapped around his shoulders. The fact that Danny wanted to do exactly that with Steve had Danny valiantly attempting to hide the blush rising on his cheeks.

He shot another look at Steve to see how he was taking this. Frankly, Danny was surprised that Steve hadn't removed his arm from Danny's shoulders yet. His breath caught when he saw that Steve was staring right at him and especially when his gaze lowered to Danny's lips. Was Danny imagining things?

Chin's thoughtful humming noise distracted Danny from the hypnotic spell Steve was casting with his eyes. “You know, I thought this was just gonna be a typical buddy cop movie. I definitely wouldn't have expected this from what they advertised in theaters.”

“It's supposed to be a twist,” Lou replied. “It looks a lot different when you know what's already going to happen.”

“You could have told us,” Kono teased. “Might have saved Steve from inhaling his popcorn.”

Lou shook his head vehemently. “And miss seeing the way y'all reacted?! Hell nah!”

“Speaking of which, what did you think, Danno?”

During all of their talking, the movie had transitioned to show Andy and Matt having breakfast together with Cynthia. The sequence was very domestic.

Danny breathed in and out deeply. It felt like Steve was asking him about more than just the movie.

“Well, I didn't know what was going to happen like Chin, so for a while, I was wondering when a girlfriend or wife would show up. But then the kiss happened, and the lack of girlfriends made sense. I mean, look at them...” He gestured vaguely at the screen, where Matt served up a plate of pancakes to Cynthia, before he dropped a kiss on Andy's lips and Cynthia giggled. “They look perfect together.”

Kono smiled over at Danny. “Aww, Danny, that was really sweet.”

Steve leaned in to whisper in Danny's ear. “I think they look perfect together, too.”

Danny was starting to think he wasn't imagining things. Maybe Steve had been having the same thoughts he had been having, making the same connections between their lives and the lives of Matt and Andy. Danny felt hope breaking through his typical negative thoughts, and he let himself bask in the sensation.

The movie concluded and Chin walked to the DVD player as the credits rolled. “Well, I guess they didn't need girlfriends.” Chin opened the DVD player and put the DVD back in its case. He smiled serenely at the group, focusing most of his attention on Steve and Danny. “I think they just needed each other.”

Kono laughed. “You have good taste in movies, but that was really lame, cuz.” She yawned and stretched exaggeratedly. “Wow, look at the time! I better get home soon.”

“Oh, uh, yeah, me too.” Lou stood up as well.

Danny rolled his eyes at their poor acting. It wasn't that late. They were obviously just pretending to be tired so that Steve and Danny could have “alone time.”

The door swung behind Chin as he followed Lou and Kono out of the room. For a couple of moments, Steve and Danny sat in an awkward silence until Steve turned his chair at an angle so that he was facing Danny.

“Hey, Danny, just, uh, hypothetically speaking...”

“Of course.” Danny nodded, trying not to grin too hard.

“If we were in a buddy cop movie, do you think the girlfriends would show up at some point?”

Danny shook his head. He started to lean in and let his goofy smile break through. “No. Hypothetically, do you think we would surprise everyone?”

Steve beamed as he leaned in further, and his gaze traveled down to Danny's lips again. “Yeah. Hypothetically.”

Danny closed the small distance between their lips, and the kiss they shared was not hypothetical. It was filled with laughter because Steve was apparently so happy that he couldn't stop smiling, and Danny ended up kissing his teeth. The next one was more tender, because after Danny finally stopped laughing, Steve cradled Danny's face in his hands and kissed him with all of the emotion he had been suppressing (which was a lot since Steve often had trouble expressing his feelings). Most importantly, the kisses were no longer imaginary or on a movie screen. They were very real, and they were very Steve and Danny, happy together as they should be.

[drink-n-watch]

There’s a novella by Isaac Asimov called Nightfall. It’s about this planet with three suns so one is always shining and then for the first time in remembered history, all three suns set at once and it’s night for the first time ever. I always really loved that concept. What does the night sky mean to people that have no conception of it. I thought back on that story when Khun was explaining that the sky is a projection.

There’s something delicately sorrowful in the idea of people that have never seen the sky. Of course this was just a random line in an otherwise action packed episode. Nothing to get hung up on or anything. Probably something the author threw in for some extra sci-fi dystopian flavour. But still, there’s a little edge of pain under this story, and I don’t hate it.

Last week I went on and on (that review was probably way too long for just one episode) about how purposefully mysterious the characters were. How great it was that they had such solid presence with little background and just organic in context development. So naturally half of episode 3 of Tower of God was dedicated to specifically fleshing out Khun’s character and giving us his backstory.

Let me try something out: Tower of God is not the type of show to send out free merch and cash rewards to all its viewers! Now we all wait a week….

So what about Khun? As mentioned, he’s probably the most standard anime archetype and likely the fanservice character (not for the sexy stuff…) but I’m a simple soul and it works on me. I like Kuhn. His backstory is still pretty murky, something about betrayal and potential half incest… You know, the usual. To me though, the reveal was much more about world building than character building. Sure we learn that Khun had some type of tragic past that has turned him into an extremely calculating and suspicious young man but honestly, it’s not like we hadn’t figured out those character traits in the first few minutes we saw of him and to me, a Freudian excuse was unnecessary.

On the other hand, the fact that his sister failing to become a princess somehow led to the downfall of his family in general and him in particular raises a whole bunch of interesting questions. How does one become a princess if they are not born a princess? Did she have to marry a prince? Why would failure to do so have consequences. The universe of Tower of God seems to be “enclosed”. A limited space with actual edges in which everything exists, and a rather small one at that. How does one get exiled in those circumstances? So far the series has been mostly action with little touches of sci fi or fantasy mystery, but this would seem to indicate that the narrative will eventually include some political intrigue! Let’s hope it can handle it.

Oh and Khun also thought it was a bit odd that Rachel left Bam behind! Great minds!!

Tower of God cleverly managed to do some double duty by using the time devoted to Khun’s development to also shine the spotlight a bit on Rak. I’ve avoided talking about the character because I’m just not sure how I feel yet. I don’t by default dislike violent or combative characters and I do think he is a good foil to the other two as episode 3 drove home. But he’s also loud and the vehicle for some classic shonen humour that’s not always my cup of tea. A bit like the elements I liked least in Demon Slayer.

Still, there’s a certain joy to be found in a simple character. One that is what they seem (not saying it’s the case here but I wouldn’t be mad). For instance, I was really amused by the fact that at some point both Khun and Bam got comfortable enough with the big guy to just sit on him. Literally use him as a chair. It’s such a weird visual to have one main cast character just casually sitting on another in a scene without any explanation or acknowledgement and it made me smile. I also think that Rak had the best line of the episode : “I hate thinking and needles”. Great line!

Great, this review got long again. I’m going to blame the fact that I take too many screencaps and that’s why I need all those words to break them up!

I really enjoyed the episode. I thought it flowed well, it was over before I knew it and I found both the timed test and the game of crown fun to watch. The series does a good job roping me into the action on screen. Of course the biggest reveal this week is the apparent return of Rachel (and the suggestion that she may be some type of elite killer but then again, maybe she’s just good at hide and seek).

I gotta say, I’m really surprised we get to see Rachel in the flesh so soon! I was entertaining some wild conspiracy theories that she may not in fact exist. Like she might actually be Bam’s imaginary friend or something. And I liked that crazy theory! I’m not sure how to feel about the last few minutes of the episode. Of course the show could pull a bait and switch and once the hood comes down it turns out it’s just some girl who vaguely resembles Rachel. Or, my current and pretty much guaranteed to not come through theory (because I’m so attached to the imaginary friend thing), is that maybe Bam isn’t supposed to exist! He’s Rachel’s imaginary friend! She was just a poor girl in a difficult situation that dreamed of escaping and finding a better life by climbing the tower and she created herself a friend who she could take care of and would love her in order to distract herself from the situation. That’s why she didn’t take him with her. There was no one there…

Like I said, there’s next to zero chance that this is really what’s going on. Still I think it would be kind of cool. What do you think is going on? Are you happy to see maybe Rachel?

      Tower of God Ep.3 – Rak the Genius There's a novella by Isaac Asimov called Nightfall. It's about this planet with three suns so one is always shining and then for the first time in remembered history, all three suns set at once and it's night for the first time ever.

[hgfstreamchats]

All Hallows’ Eve Stream

Hello! Also I AM getting the video What a good costume Testing, testing. Everything's fine over here! No, not the pumpkin! ...Can you see ME or is kast messing up in a new(?) and wonderful way I can see you, but only on a seperate console. That's... baffling. I'll reload There we are! Oh, Kast. Okay, there it is. ...Tell me I'm not invisible again. Oh no, I see you. Ahhh, good! Now that's real horror. Eh, it's probably better for him anyway. I'm sure it'll all work out. It'll be fien. Man, that room is HUGE Solid advice. If Prime had won the war. *shudder* I'm sure it'll be fine. Also fine. Soundwave gets along fine. Really, why did they even have forks ...Well, that's going to bother me forever. Subtle! Very! Who wrote THAT book It's very specific. Ugh. ... This is worse than anything in the episode itself. Does he.  think he's going to be able to eat that Got to admire his ambition, though. I'm questioning how he got it in or out of the house at all "Earth capital" sounds like something I would have believed and could still be convinced to. Heh. I'm still hung up over those Latin puns, those were clever. Hello all! Hi!

Hm new streaming site, never heard of this one It's totally awesome and not at all buggy. Zephra human! Hi Knock Out! I finally made it to a stream! Excellent! That just raises further questions! Nice save. Very nice. Ewww. sooo has the video started now? Try reloading It, uh.  It does that 'Cause I'm not getting anything on my end, I did that, I turned off my adblock and refreshed Or try clicking the leave button (top, to the right of the settings button) and coming back in Okay I'll try that How meta. So...the multiverse? ... Nope still nothin' I'm gonna try switching browsers Kast is a wretched thing. I'm on chrome I DO remember having this problem with Rabbit too, something about my adblock/settings wasn't letting me load video WHELP apparently Kast doesn't support Firefox at ALL, soo fun times Is a non-Firefox browser an option? I've only got Chrome and Firefox Don't you love how you have to have 4 different browsers installed for different websites that have different requirements for some reason? Oh yeah LOVE it It works on chrome for me, although not always on the first try My emulator's using chrome. Oh, THIS one Okay I'm gonna try messing around with my extensions and crossing my fingers Ha! Oh nice! The first one I turned off worked! I HAVE VIDEO WOO GLORIOUS! Woo! He didn't come in through the door... He came in through the living room Way to punch that ten-year old in the face, Hibbert Like they didn't already know. Doctor of the year. Truly. top 10 anime betrayals They know about the waffle incident. what a turn! Why is Dr Fink the only character that has a tiny counterpart? I mean, you can't prove he is She's not forcing them to barter for their dead children, she's already doing a better job than Primus. AH THIS ONE HAS ONE OF MY FAVOURITE JOKES That was mine. classic The best kind of conspiracy! The biggest hitch in their plan is that Homer would ever choose rum over beer True. The fish eyes make it. Still true Hah! TWIRLING TWIRLING TWIRLING T'WARDS FREEDOM FAVE Seconded! Other favorite! WHoopsie! Well, that's what elections are for! I remember that joke going over my head as a kid Alright, onto Rifftrax! 'why is NOT voting for the evil choses throwing your vote away?' *choices Hmmm Oh I thought it was one of those where it's just the sound and you're supposed to synch it up Vincent Price! These guys are sapping the fun out of having a chat open They keep riffing when WE'RE the ones who should be riffing A little, maybe We always find a way to slip in a few. True This is the setup to a murder mystery. If Opera has taught me anything watch out for the chandelier AHAAAAAAAAAAA "Why haven't you killed them yet, it's been five WHOLE minutes" There's an established population of Vincent Price humans living in the hills to this day. She def has the 'I'm on my own fourth husband and they all died from mysterious circumstances' 'Lol first degree murder jokes, the staple of any solid marriage' One of these characters is absolutely going to kill the other. I *was* joking, but... Yyyyeah. '... And welcome to Jackass' "haha it's almost like you're trying to reenact it or something" Just leave your hand there I love how he's like 'charming' when dude's being macabre like he hasn't been nothing but unsettling since he came onscreen Ew indeed. I love how she's all 'meh' about mysterious blood dripping on her out of nowhere "See, we even kept the acit fro some reason" You never know when you might need an acid vat. Waste not, want not. Why are you entertaining this jackass girl I'm secretly expecting no ghosts at all Just murder. Exactly I'm expecting no ghosts or they're all ghosts. Wait I'm changing my guess There ARE ghosts but exactly zero of them are killing people Oh right, that's the one from Scariest Movie Moments of All Time despite being no such thing. That's right hit on the host's wife that'll win you points at this party Try not to be TOO disappointed about not getting into her pants, Lance "you're going to be the star corpse!" fcuk my nose made a WEIRD snort at that 'does she miss being scared' joke Running and screaming was probably the right call to make. Tiny little coffins Hah! Wee little coffins. Sheesh. So the idea is they all kill each other trying to get a larger prize, huh. I'm sure the police would have no questions for them afterwards. Absolutely none. Yes, yes, you want to murder one another, we get it. NOT AT ALL Better get back to the scotch Still trying ot get laid eh Lance run at her with a severed head, THAT'LL CALM HER DOWN Nice knife dude There's very little haunting going on in this house. Clearly false advertising If they're doing karaoke they have to do some Scissor Sisters 'I CAN'T DECIDE WHETHER YOU SHOULD LIVE OR DIE~' Pfff 'OH YOU'LL PROBABLY GO TO HEAVEN' 'PLEASE DON'T HANG YOUR HEAD AND CRY~' Oh NOW you're all suspicious and have questions about this bizzare situation Right? I'm half expecting they ARE actually all conected in weird roundabout ways ala The Clue Movie If the singing telegram lady doesn't show up I'm going to be bitterly disappointed. Same She's really just freaking out because it wasn't scotch Someone spilled wine in the room above. The real horror is the cleaning bill. ... the video being a butt for anybody else right now? Working okay for me mine was laggy and now it's totally frozen The sound's a little desynched but then it always is Oof I'll try refreshing if it's just me Well, that's not weird Okay looks alright now And finally, we have a ghost! if she was REALLY DEAD TO BEGIN WITH OOOOH I'm kind of leaning towards actual ghosts now, since otherwise I'm not sure how that rope trick would work maybe the same way the movie did it ...okay, fair point ...Actually I assume the movie could've done it by, like, pulling along on a thread and hiding the person pulling it via camera angles OHHHHHHHHHH DID I CALL IT You did! YYYYYYYEAH Yes let's spend as much time as possible in the acid room Never a dull moment in the acid room. okay so like why bother disposing of the body? Right? you didn't kill him, there was no direct evidence of your involvment That just raises MORE questions yes, move closer And then a skeleton popped out! Ha! BITCH IT'S A SKELETON WOULD YOU BE SCARED OF CALISTA FLOCKART? Covered in acid, though That is absolutely how those things work, I'm sure ...Hang on, what about the body the guy dumped in the pit the strings being visible actually being part of the plot is the biggest twist in this thing WHY DOES EVERYONE INSIST ON GETTING AS CLOSE AS POSSIBLE TO THE ACID VAULT?? To see the magical acidic secrets within! Skeleton - By Himself But is David S Pumpkins here! He will be, like scrap I'm letting this night go by without showing him. lolol Murderous animatronics? THAT'S never been done before "yeah I have some questions" Just a few. Deep lore! Well I'm certaily scared *certainly Aren't we all? How could you not be! Freddy Who? Jason whatshisname? All hasbeens compared to... Alright! Anything you'd like to see before we close out? If not, I'm content to close out on David Pumpkins. OOOOOOHHH DAVID S. PUMPKINS Any questions? I'm good, I need to do some dishes anyway Thanks for the stream, Knock Out! I gueeeess I should get dinner Thank you for coming! Always a delight to have you! Say hi to the fam for me, and happy Halloween! Thanks for hosting!  It's been... a treat. :) Of course! Happy Halloween! And to you!