#this whole scene was absolutely fucking ridiculous and I have no further comment

[acatinabox]

Is Mystra a jerk?

One of my latest posts has had a bit of attention. The point someone made was that a cleric of Mystra should know how fickle she is so she shouldn’t have a special reaction to it during Gale’s confession scene, as I claimed in my original post. I wanted to address this matter on a separate post because first, my answer proved to be too long for a comment; second, it led me to some new interesting findings in the lore I wanted to share.

It is true, if we look at the wikis, that Mystra has done some quite morally dubious stuff in the millennia:

She has produced seven daughters without the consent of their father and led to the death of their mother (who was possessed for the whole time).

She has given an avatar of hers to said father to torture as retribution for what she did to her;

She has forsaken one of her chosen one leading him to madness and to creating an evil cult;

Etcetera.

First of all, we should address whether this, in the moral framework of the Forgotten Realms, constitutes evil behaviour.

To which the answer is... eh. As per rule books, she is currently aligned as neutral good, but in the past her old incarnation was lawful neutral, with her being the arbiter of all magic. Most recently, Shar has tried to take over parts of the Weave and hence absorb certain parts of magic in her portfolio (with dubious results). In the grand scheme of things, she is generally allied with good deities, such as Selune, and the public’s perception of Mystra is that of her being a munificent mother who has gifted humanity with magic, sometimes at the cost of self sacrifice.

This leads us to the question: should her actions be held to the same standards as player characters and NPCs in terms of alignment shifts? Well that is a bit of a complex question. What we know of Mystra is that she can predict the future and will manipulate events to a certain extent in order to fulfill what is best for the progress of arcane arts. My opinion is that she is more of a guardian of good as “the bigger picture”, even if it comes at a cost in terms of hurting some individuals.

There is also the matter of determining what “good” is, in more absolute terms. Because lawful good paladins and chaotic good rebels could be pushed to do some pretty extreme stuff to protect their ideals or to further their cause or when faced with complex moral dilemmas such as: is killing a red dragon cub an evil act in itself, when adult red dragons generally become evil and destructive?

But is Mystra capricious? Well, it is really hard to tell, since she is a deity that can see the future, but so far all her actions have been motivated by the protection of the greater good and in general fighting evil deities like the Dead Three and Shar.

How her follower see her less morally pristine actions? This is one of the crucial points I’d like to address. All the actions that I mentioned, including producing the Seven Sisters at the expense of their mortal mother, are not really well known. The handbooks make it a point to tell the player that this is not common knowledge. The handbook that addresses the dragon cult founded by Sammaster clearly states that it is DM only knowledge and that unless there is a good reason to, players won’t know about it. Even the Seven Sisters do not seem to know precisely the tale of their origin (I read multiple sources on this and it appears they don’t even know the identity of their father, whom some of them meet).

It is safe then to assume that Gale, or also a devout player character, would not know of this less than bright side of her. They would not expect it.

And if you consider that the more publicly known lovers she had (Azuth, for instance, but also possibly Elminster, although we don’t know how much of his adventures is common knowledge) are legendary wizards (gods), then you can clearly understand that for the goddess to sleep with a mortal is not a common occurrence, and it will certainly lead to a strong reaction.

Moreover, after the last all out god war brought a ton of destruction to the material plane, Ao (who’s like, daddy god) imposed that deities do not manifest physically in the material plane anymore, if not through clerics. And while Mystra is a bit above these rules and has kept in touch with her daughters, I don’t think this would be common knowledge as well, because her daughters currently are in positions of power, hence not very accessible to a common cleric.

So no, a cleric of Mystra would not have solid ground to think their goddess is capricious or flirty or whatever.

All in all, I think discovering that your new boyfriend has quite literally fucked your goddess that you devoted your life to deserves a little bit of surprise at least, and since most of the other scenes with Gale have at least a special reaction connected to the Cleric of Mystra tag, if not two, I expected for there to be anything, during the confession scene, which wasn’t the case.

In terms of lore the implications of sleeping with your goddess’s estranged lover are pretty severe: you could lose your powers because you could have inadvertently slept with an enemy of her or someone who is forbidden, etc. It is not a trivial matter at all.

That said, I will personally punch Mystra in the face for hurting Gale, and if his version is indeed the whole truth, so will my Rayne.

This is my take on all this. Feel free to tell me what you think, but I have a request: be polite about it. I don’t mind if you disagree, as long as you do it with respect. I’ve read quite a few posts on the Gale tag where people treated others’ opinions as ridiculous, mocked them, or felt their own opinion was the only one acceptable. I honestly think this is damaging to the fandom and to people who are exposed to it. So just don’t do it. Behave like adults. Thanks.

[dracoladon]

Top 5 of 2020

Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5 (ish) favourite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. Tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

thank u to my lovely @tackytigerfic, @sitp-recs, @bonesliketambourines and @lazywonderlvnd for the tags. i’ve only written three fics this year, so even though this list is abt self love, i’m gna dedicate the last two spots to my two favourite fics i’ve read this year (that were published this year as well😔) cause i love myself for having such talented mutuals :/

1. Born Slippy: God I fucking loved writing Born Slippy. I’m a hoe for a good club fic. The aesthetics of crowded dance floor, loud music, body glitter etc are exquisite and I think (hope) I managed to capture even a little of that in this fic. It’s probably my favourite out of the very few I’ve written, cause I think it’s the one that best encapsulates my writing style and everything I love about Darry and fanfic. There were some banter moments I was really proud of, and the smut was like the embodiment of wanting to read smth with your all your favourite kinks so literally just writing it yourself. I said self indulgence!

2. Lucid: This was the first fic I wrote for Drarry, and for that reason it’s a bit special to me. It was a lot of fun to write and it really helped me figure out what I love writing (dialogue) and what I don’t (the prose in between). I think it had the kind of slice of life feel I was going for. a look in on a relationship that’s already been put through it’s paces and is now purely abt being together. I had an absolute blast with sex dumb Draco and finding a bunch of constellation bullshit for him to spin. I wasn’t expecting the response I got to this fic, either, so overall it just has very warm, lovely memories for me.

oh god and this was also the first fic of mine to get a rec from the absolute goddess that is @sitp-recs. good times indeed 😔

3. Little Spaces: !!! This fic has just been like ridiculously enjoyable to write. Hitting walls is kind of inevitable and doing this w anna was such an amazing way to work through the writer’s block I was having with my other stuff. I’d never written Draco before this, so it’s been super fun further exploring his voice, and I’m very very proud of what we’ve been able to produce together.

4. Inside Your Mind by @lazywonderlvnd

I think I’ve raved about this fic more than once on here before, as well as extensively in the comments on ao3, but seriously. It is.... 🤔 a masterclass in melancholic softness and drarry d/s dynamics. I saw a post not too long ago (which I already sent to anna but she can just deal w it 😡) that said all this stuff abt book harry. how he was passionate and sarcastic and witty and charismatic, and he could be intimidating when he was angry and had this wild intensity. he could be arrogant and humble and kind of an ass but he’s still our precious harry and he’ll be chill and laugh around w u and probably save ur life. i thought it perfectly encapsulated harry as he’s written in the books, and also harry in this fic. anna has an insane ability to write characters just as they are in canon, but also w her own distinct style. it kind of makes me want to cry. IYM’s Harry was charming and gorgeous and imperfect and an idiot, and I loved him. Not to mention Draco 😔. Every scene between the two of them felt so delicate and intricately woven, the smut was beautiful and raw, and the love confession was perhaps my favourite ever. I will forever be in awe of this genius’ talent (there were so many brilliant lines in this fic that I refuse to go hunting for them lest I be tempting into spending the whole day rereading it) and IYM is the absolute pinnacle of that. PLUS goyle, who is tragically underrepresented in fic, soft kissing, sitting by the lake, a stunningly written friendship between the golden trio, and an entire world in thirty thousand words :/ read it and weep :/

5. Modern Love by @tackytigerfic

There are much more eloquent reviews that do this stunning fic the justice it deserves (cough cough sitp) so i shan’t try and compete. I will however say that Modern Love is a magnum opus (tho knowing tacky, and their ever increasing brilliance, that may change) and I absolutely loved it. I haven’t even commented yet, cause though I finished it a few days ago I’m literally still recovering. It’s sad, holy fuck, it is emotional and deep and thoughtful, and it’s Draco in the Muggle world with these original character friends who are so tangible and developed that I feel like i’ve met them in real life. There is a plot that doesn’t distract from the love story, and a love story that doesn’t distract from the achingly slow build of a soft, pining friendship, and a soft, pining friendship that doesn’t distract from Harry and Draco’s own personal character arcs. The ease with which tacky writes our two boys (and writes period) has always amazed me. The talent is in every fucking line, the humour is brilliant and subtle, and the smut is !!! absolutely worth the wait. An aesthetically pleasing masterpiece that I shall always treasure.

[bastardtetsu]

critical thinking | ch②

pairing: kuroo tetsuro x gn!reader

genre: college au, enemies to lovers, tsundere!reader, slow burn

wc: 1.7k

warning: swearing, being a theatre major

※ mlist | ① ● ③ ④

after several weeks of douchebag exposure therapy, you’re practically numb to kuroo’s bullshit - for the most part. you still get a bit flustered when you get things wrong, but his teasing barely phases you since you’ve abandoned the concept of speaking to him with respect.

“STILL struggling with balancing equations, y/n??” he chides as you work on your homework, “jeez, maybe i need to start giving you extra assignments.”

“on god kuroo, if you try to make me do any more chemistry than is absolutely necessary i will make sure you never know a day of peace in your life.”

“but y/n,” he teases, “you know if you don’t practice you’ll never get any better.”

“i’m not trying to ‘get better,’ i’m trying to pass the class.”

“ahh, no ambition. you hate to see it.”

“wanna shut the fuck up and let me do my homework?” you snap.

“see, there’s that passion!”

he really is insufferable. you roll your eyes and groan, turning your attention away from the mocking rooster & back to your homework while he gets up to stretch his legs.

what he said wasn’t wrong, you are struggling with the whole balancing equations thing. your brain feels like it’s working on overdrive as you scribble away - numbers are definitely not your strong suit.

you can hear him start to snicker behind you as you work. you pause your writing and turn around to see him peeking over your shoulder with a sadistic smile on his face.

“is something funny?” you ask, unimpressed. his smile softens a bit as you stare him down.

“you’re doing it wrong,” he says, and leans down to correct your work. his face is much closer to yours now, you can almost feel the warmth of his breath as his arm reaches around your right side to write in your notebook while his left hand rests on the back of your chair, practically enveloping you.

resisting the urge to turn and stare at the annoying, criminally sculpted face that’s now inches away from yours, you fix your eyes on his hand as he writes and try to ignore how warm you suddenly feel.

his hands are big, you think, noticing how much smaller your pencil looks when he holds it. you can smell his cologne again, too. sandalwood or whatever.

“there, see?” he says, turning his head to look at you.

your faces are still so close.

what is it about his eyes that makes his stare feel so intense every time?

you quickly avert your gaze back to the page of notes, focusing extra hard on the numbers so you can ignore the beat your heart skipped just now. somehow, the equation in front of you looks even more indecipherable than it did before. and why does your face feel so hot?

“i… still don’t get it,” you admit tentatively. he just lets out a soft chuckle, letting his gaze drop for a second before locking eyes with you, lips curled into a smirk.

“you really are bad at this.”

another electric shock of embarrassment mixed with rage jolts through you.

“yeah, and what?” you challenge, “that makes me dumber than you? ok, well if you’re so smart why don’t you try telling me about willy loman’s superobjective in death of a salesman? or identifying the difference between verse and prose in classical text?? i bet you don’t even know who anton chekhov is, but sure, i’m the idiot because i don’t know how to balance a damn equation. how about learn your shit, and then you can teach me mine.”

kuroo just stands there for a moment, taken aback by your outburst. then the bitch starts laughing.

“what’s funny?!!” you interrogate, your voice getting louder. his laugh sounds like a goddamn hyena.

“y/n oh my god,” he chokes out between cackles, “you’re such a nerd!”

“ME??!!?!” you just about scream, furious, “you’re calling me a nerd?? have you met yourself??!”

“well at least i’m not in danger of failing a class,” he giggles.

“that has nothing to do with this,” you snap.

“so who’s anton chek-whatever?” he prods, still amused.

“see, you’re laughing but you’re the one sounding stupid this time,” you grumble. you can tell he’s just searching for something else to tease you about, but you can’t resist the opportunity to turn the tables & be the one schooling him for once. “chekhov. he’s a famous playwright. from russia. one of the early pioneers of modernism in the late 19th/early 20th century - not that you’d even know what that means.”

“you’re right, i don’t,” he relents, “but you seem like you do. nerd.” his eyes have an extra glint in them as they narrow with another taunting smirk.

“leave me alone, you’re the one who asked,” you groan, finally fed up with his antics. “look, i need to finish this homework before i get out of here. otherwise it’s never getting done.”

“i’ll check your answers when you’re finished,” he offers.

“only if you’re not a dick about it.”

“you only think I’m being a dick when you get the answer wrong.”

“SHUT UP.”

—

as midterms approach, the stress is starting to get to you as your workload gets heavier and heavier. maybe that’s why you seem extra snarky towards your annoying, hot, annoyingly hot chemistry tutor today.

“y/n, did you review chemical bonds like i told you to last week?” he chides after you get another homework question wrong. sometimes he really does sound like a teacher, or someone’s dad. but thankfully, he is neither of those things, which means you can comfortably trash him.

“sorry i have things to worry about besides memorizing how electrons work,” you snark, “what about you? this isn’t even your major, do you not have other shit to do besides come here & make fun of me?”

“hey, i do this because i love it!” he protests dramatically. you can see the smirk in his eyes.

“sure” you sneer back, “look, i don’t know about you, but some of us actually have to work for our degrees. we don’t have time to waste bullying people who don’t know science for fun.”

“who says I can’t do both?”

now you’re starting to get annoyed.

“dude for real. do you know how busy i am?? like, ALL the time??? why else do you think i’m here? i wouldn’t be in this shitty class if i had room for anything else. i can’t even go to my professor’s office hours!”

“ah, well, that explains a lot.”

“shut up,” you jab, “the only reason i keep coming back to your dumb ass tutoring hours is because my schedule is so goddamn packed i can’t meet up with anyone else.”

“sure, whatever you say y/n,” he croons, tone dripping in sarcasm.

“what’s that supposed to mean?”

“oh you know,” he teases, eyes full of mischief. you really don’t though?

“you’re full of shit,” you mutter dismissively. he’s trying to egg you on to say something stupid so he can ridicule you for it, but you can see right through him.

“i’m not the one dodging the subject,” he grins, his eyes unmoving from you as you turn back to your paper. even facing away from him, you can feel his laser beam of a stare on you as if he were breathing right down your neck. ha, i wish. wait— “you know, you’re not gonna get very far on that worksheet if you didn’t do any review.”

“would you be quiet?” you snap at him, fed up with his condescension, “or better yet, maybe do your job and help me figure it out?”

“well,” he purrs with a sickly sweet smirk, “only since you asked so nicely.”

you make sure to roll your eyes extra hard at him to make up for the way your heartbeat quickened at his flirtatious tone.

thankfully, he actually obeys your request this time and tones down the teasing as he explains chemical bonds, doing his best to help you through each homework problem step-by-step. usually he can tell when you’re actually getting irritated and makes up for it like this. you’re silently grateful for this form of kindness from him, even if it’s only because you’re a nightmare to work with otherwise.

as you wrap up your session with him - late once again, but he never minds staying past the end of his tutoring hours since he has the rest of the day off anyway - you hurriedly pack your things, grumbling a complaint about how now you don’t have time to get something to eat before you meet with your scene partner to rehearse your acting midterm. while it’s pretty normal for you to miss meals because of your schedule, it’s frustrating nonetheless, especially after your brain has just been fried by molecular bonds.

“oi, y/n,” kuroo says as you turn to leave. you pause, bracing yourself for whatever stupid comment he’s about to make.

“take care of yourself,” he says, a tinge of concern just barely distinguishable in his tone, before adding, “and remember to review covalent and ionic bonds!” you sigh. he sounds like a dad again.

“see, those are contradictory statements,” you gripe, “chemical bonds could not be further from self care.” he chuckles softly at that.

“at least make sure you eat, ok? maybe you’d get better at chemistry if you had more nutrients.”

“BYE, kuroo,” you call out, already headed for the door.

as you hurry towards your next destination, you can’t get your mind off of how weird it was to see kuroo acting… worried about you? normally his reaction to your struggling is just to tease you about it, but this was new for him. you’re not sure how to feel about it, and it’s hard to tell when the adrenaline of being in a rush is making your heartbeat do all sorts of things that might be confused with something else.

either way, there’s no way you’re reviewing a goddamn thing before next week.

a/n: yeah ok my theatre major jumped out in this one.. i can’t believe i’m posting a fic where i talk about superobjectives & chekhov unironically dsfdddfs hope that doesn’t ruin the experience for u, i really tried to do some research so y/n and kuroo could have an actual discussion about chemistry but turns out i’m dumb in real life so u get this instead

[benedictscanvas]

all the wrong places  [4/7] - spencer reid x reader

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female!Reader

Word Count: 2.3k

Summary: It only takes a moment for Spencer to realise that he doesn’t just want to marry you someday, he wants to marry you as soon as he possibly can. But since he can’t come up with a solid plan, he turns to his BAU family for help in planning the most important day of his life so far. Is that a mistake? Most definitely.

Warnings: Series probably aren’t meant to be exclusively fluffy, but this one practically is! I need some fluff in my life, damn it! There may be some mention of regular Criminal Minds things, some language but mostly just good ol’ Spence lovin’

a chapter every day for seven days! (20-26th July 2020) so please drop an ask if you’d like to be tagged <3

---

Chapter Four - Could We Confer?

It seemed that this had become a game to everyone except himself, like they’d forgotten that the whole point of this was that he wanted to ask you to marry him and that was a pretty serious endeavour.

Everyone in the BAU had become aware of his plans, because there was no way Garcia and Morgan could keep the Bruno Mars story to themselves. In fairness, Spencer couldn’t wait to tell you the story once he’d finally popped the question. Morgan had told Rossi, who thought it was hilarious and did nothing to hide that, whilst Rossi himself told Hotch. Even Hotch laughed. He hadn’t come up to Spencer to tease him about it like so many of the others, but there had been a few particular looks.

Now, at Rossi’s house for a dinner that you weren’t able to come to, it was the favoured topic of conversation.

“Y/N having a girls’ night with her school friends is actually perfect,” Derek said mischievously, raising his eyebrows at Spencer, “Because now we can decide who gets to help Spencer with his proposal next.”

“Yes!” Garcia clapped her hands, “Three people down, three to go. We should take bets.”

“I’ll go next,” Emily chimed in, “I’ve got an idea that I really think could work. If you’re placing bets, you better place them on me.”

Spencer gawked at them all.

“Guys,” he said, just as Penelope got her phone out to write down everyone’s bets, “Come on. This is ridiculous. I don’t want any more help.”

“Have you got a plan, pretty boy?”

He stumbled over his words. He had already said no without even having to say the word.

“And do you want to propose to Y/N in this decade?”

He didn’t bother trying to answer this time. There was no point. But Emily had thrown something at Derek and was turning to him instead.

“Don’t listen to him, Reid,” she said kindly, “Think about it. You’ve got me, Rossi and Hotch left to ‘give you advice’. Isn’t that a little reassuring? You’ve got all the idiots out of the way.”

She looked directly at Derek when she said idiots and he scoffed, holding a hand to his heart in mock offence. Rossi was already shaking his head, however.

“Reid does not need advice from a three time divorcee,” he asserted firmly, “No way.”

“I’m not getting involved either,” Hotch said blankly, holding his hands up in surrender. Spencer smiled at them both gratefully.

“Just me then,” Emily said excitedly, pushing forward on the couch until she was sat on the very edge of it, directly facing Spencer, “You want to hear it?”

He knew his options. Or, rather, his lack thereof. She took his silence as permission to continue.

“Picture the scene,” she said dreamily, a hand held out in front of her, “Fairy lights adorn the conference room. There’s candles on the table-”

“Fire hazard.”

“Let me finish! Candles on the table, with all the normal lights turned off and its dark outside because its after work, see? Then we get Y/N to go out to get something for Hotch from his car, because she’s too kind not to, then when she comes back, we’re all holding candles!”

“Emily…”

“I said, let me fucking finish. We’re all holding candles and then she walks past all of us and we give her a rose each, so by the time she gets to Spencer in the conference room-”

“You got this from The Office, didn’t you?”

“No!” Emily said indignantly, “I got it from a video on Youtube of cute proposal ideas, how dare you?”

Spencer let out a lengthy sigh, as did a few of the others.

“So your idea isn’t even your own?” Derek tsked, “Way to let the side down, Prentiss.”

“Oh yeah? And what about your idea, huh? Your idea ended up with him down on one knee with Y/N thinking he was tying his laces!”

“At least I didn’t send a flash mob to Quantico.”

“Well, at least I knew that Y/N can’t stand fancy restaurants like the one JJ sent him to.”

“Hey! Let’s go back to the literal flash mob, shall we?”

And so it continued. A four way argument where absolutely no one was winning, but the other three men were quickly gaining new headaches. It wasn’t as if Spencer knew how to stop this argument. The only thing he could think to tell them was that all their ideas were shit, but somehow he didn’t think that would defuse anything adequately.

“You know what we should do?” Dave suddenly said, loudly and firmly enough that the bickering ceased instantaneously, “We should show Y/N the video of that proposal and see what she thinks.”

“But that’d clue Y/N in on the fact that Spence was going to propose, wouldn’t it?”

“And he wouldn’t be able to use the idea anymore!”

“Just to be absolutely clear,” Spencer said, even though it had become clear his opinion was neither wanted nor needed in the conversation of how to propose to you, “I was never going to use the idea anyway.”

Emily glared at him but he just shrugged. He really didn’t think he was the one being unreasonable here.

“At least we’ll know how good Prentiss’ idea was?” Dave suggested.

“I could do it,” Hotch piped up for the first time in a while, having been watching his team’s antics with fond disapproval, “I could suggest that I was going to propose to Beth, what did she think of this idea?”

“I thought you and Beth broke up?” Penelope stage whispered and Hotch rolled his eyes almost imperceptibly.

“We did, but I haven’t told everyone that yet, Penelope,” he said pointedly and she put a hand over her mouth as she sank further into her seat, Derek putting a comforting arm around her, “Before any of you say a word, she was given a job offer in Hong Kong, it was mutual, I am fine.”

Surprisingly, he actually did seem reasonably fine, so no one had the guts to push the subject, at least for the night. Instead, Emily started taking bets on whether Hotch’s plan would work, on what your response to the proposal would be, on every random thing she could think of. She was very good at swindling the tipsier members of the team out of their money.

Spencer sat back and sipped his lemonade. He found comfort in the fact that their plan had nothing to do with him this time, and he could focus on finding the perfect proposal without worrying about their incessant meddling.

For a day, at least.

---

For a group of profilers, they were not the most subtle people on the planet. Hotch was playing his role perfectly, by simply not acting any different to usual, but the others were being...weird. Maybe it was just because Spencer knew what they were planning, knew how much money each of them had riding on your answer, but they all seemed to be treating you with some extra kindness in the thirty minutes before wheels up.

As if being nice to you would help you choose the option that would benefit them in a made-up test that, as of now, you had no fucking clue about.

You’d been called in dreadfully early for a case and were on the jet by five thirty in the morning, but still Morgan had already made you a coffee and both JJ and Penelope had commented on how nice you looked that day. You were wearing your worst shirt. You knew, because Penelope had previously told you that it was your worst shirt.

“What is with everyone today?” you asked Spencer after the jet briefing, sat next to him at one of the table seats. He didn’t look up from the file he was reading.

“I have no idea,” he said easily, “I find it best to just ignore them when they’re being weird. Getting involved never does me any good.”

“Wise words from my genius boyfriend,” you teased, earning a small smile even though he still wouldn’t look at you. The smile wasn’t just from the compliment though, because nowadays he tended to smile every time you referred to him as your boyfriend, if only because he was imagining how it would feel to hear you refer to him as your fiance - as your husband. The thought made him giddy.

You had to say yes first, of course. Didn’t stop him thinking about it.

“I am very wise,” he hummed. You didn’t reply, choosing instead to cuddle a little closer to him, resting your head just beneath his chin so he could rest his weight on it. He tilted to rest his cheek on top of your head for just a moment before returning to the previous position, “Your hair is so soft, angel.”

“Thank you, hun,” you murmured, closing your eyes for a moment. Unfortunately, that was just the moment that JJ nudged Hotch with a force that sprung him into action.

“Actually, Y/L/N, I’ve been meaning to ask your opinion on something, if you don’t mind?” Hotch said quietly, seeing as you had your eyes closed. You opened them readily at the question, only slightly annoyed at your quiet Spence time being disturbed.

“Oh, ‘course Hotch. What did you need?”

“Well I’ve asked everyone else I think, but I wanted your opinion too,” he said slowly, as he scrolled through his phone to find something. You didn’t move from your position leaning against Spencer, even if you normally would when talking to your boss, but since it was five thirty in the morning and you should still be cuddled up with Spence in your bed, you couldn’t bring yourself to care.

“Okay…”

“I’m thinking about, well,” he hesitated a little, “Proposing to Beth. Sometime. Soon.”

“Oh wow!” you said happily, finally sitting up in your chair, much to Spencer’s dismay. You made sure to control your reaction, seeing as you knew Hotch wouldn’t want the fuss, “That’s amazing, Hotch. I’m really happy for you.” “Thank you,” he said sincerely, “What do you think of this? For the proposal?”

And with that, he shoved the phone towards you and pressed play. The entire team waited with baited breath as you watched. Spencer too, even if he was still pretending to be busy with that file he’d finished reading so long ago. You didn’t say anything while you watched, brows furrowed, facial expressions giving nothing away.

The video finished. You leaned back into your chair. Silence.

“So? Thoughts?” Hotch prompted, because apparently he was invested now too. Spencer didn’t remember him betting on anything, but nothing would surprise him at this point.

“Honestly, Hotch? Not my favourite. It feels a little contrived, you know?”

“Right, okay.”

“I hope I’m not overstepping, sir,” you said seriously, “But also, it’s not very you. Most important part of any proposal? The fact that you’re the one who’s proposing to her. The fact that she’s the one you wants to marry. Nothing else matters that much.”

“So just to be abundantly clear,” Hotch said, pushing it now, “You do not think this is a good idea.”

You frowned.

“Sorry if that’s not what you wanted to hear, I just think a proposal should be about how much you love each other rather than all the extra bits. But that’s only my opin-”

“Bullshit!” 

Emily was the one who shouted it, top of her voice, startling Spencer so much that a couple of the notes in his file fell to the floor. He didn’t bother picking them up, too busy staring at Emily in horrified shock. Everyone else was doing the same.

“I’m sorry Em, my opinion doesn’t even matter, really, it’s all down to what Hotch thinks.”

Emily was quiet, clearly realising the stupidity of what she’d just done, too wrapped up in how much money she had just lost to Derek in the corner with the shit-eating grin. She stood from her chair, trying to keep her resolve and not die of embarrassment.

“It’s just bullshit,” she said, so quietly they could hardly hear her, before scurrying off to the coffee machine without another word. Everyone stared after her with wide eyes, and the guilt on your face was palpable.

“I really am sorry, Hotch,” you whispered across the table, “I’d never want to lie to you, that’s all.”

“Don’t be, I’m glad you told me. I was pretty against the idea anyway, but it was Emily who showed me the video in the first place.”

You nodded your head in understanding, still sparing glances towards the curtain Emily was now behind. You turned to Spencer, who had finally picked his notes up from the floor and was back to his file, albeit with a new heat creeping up the back of his neck.

“You think I should go apologise? I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“You have nothing to apologise for, Y/N,” he said firmly, putting his arm around you when you still didn’t look convinced, “It’s early and Emily’s cranky. She’ll have a coffee and calm down before you know it. See if you can get an hour’s rest before we land.”

You nodded, curling yourself back into Spencer’s chest, bringing your feet up on the seat. When he looked down at your closed eyes, he knew you wouldn’t be able to sleep worrying about Emily being mad at you, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. He just pulled you closer.

When he caught eyes with Derek, he sent him a strong glare as Derek held his hands up in surrender.

I’m going to murder you all, Spencer mouthed at him with great precision, watching as Derek bit his lip in response.

You love us really, he mouthed back jokingly, but Spencer’s glare only narrowed as he felt you cuddle in closer. He pressed a kiss to the crown of your head and looked back at Derek, noticing that most eyes on the jet were on him now, most looking rather apologetic. He looked each of them in the eye as he mouthed at them:

I’m going to murder you all...very slowly.

---

taglist (ily all <3)

@mrs-dr-reid @soda610 @alexxcorona113 @thupidalethea @may-beforejune-afterapril @ilovesupersoldiers @hurricanejjareau @stardream14 @mortallythoughtfulgurl @aperrywilliams @saranyx @anotherspencerreidblog @thegayestdestielshipper @burkgolden @reidsmyhusband-emilysmymistress @zozoleesi @baumindss @sargent-barnes​ @halseysunset​

[bisexualdaemon]

I came to some realizations after Azriel’s bonus chapter.

a) it took place in the middle of the book, not the end. This was also relatively close to the time where Elain kept stating that she wanted a human mate, not a fae.

b) I think Azriel is extremely desperate for love. Do I think he feels some sort of attraction (whether sexual or romantic) towards Elain? Yes. Do I think that he’s also just extremely needy for love after seeing his two brothers find their mates in quick succession and now he sees his chance to find a partner himself after lining after the same girl for 500 years? Yes.

c) Azriel needs to fix his damn self because I don’t like the fact that he said he hadn’t thought further then bedding Elain when she seems like a sweet girl who has a whole lot more character exploring to come (or at least I hope so). Also dislike how Lucien respects Azriel and the 2 seemed to get along quiet well throughout the book, yet Azriel was ready to legit kill Lucien who is an absolute gem to me.

d) I find it interesting how the bonus chapter started with Elain and Azriel and ended with Gwyn and Azriel. Might be foreshadowing, might be a build up for angst, idk.

e) I can’t wait for that necklace re gift to blow up in Azriel’s face.

f) I don’t like how Elain is treating Lucien. It may be the fact that she doesn’t want to accept that she is now Fae and has a Fae mate, but at least talk to the man or at the very least be civil to him. Lucien is one of my favourite characters and that dude just can’t catch a break. I’m not saying she has to accept him (because no man is entitled to Elain, she is her own woman and should be treated as such) but don’t string my poor fox boy around. And especially don’t entertain the idea of sleeping with another guy under the same roof as him. Either reject him or talk it out with him.

g) there are so many different ways these next books can go but my main concern is how sjm is gonna find new worldly conflicts (not romantic ones because holy shit we have enough of those) because it kinda feels like the storyline is just being dragged a bit.

h) I’m a Gwynriel shipper but I’m not completely opposed to Azriel and Elain getting together. As long as Gwyn and Lucien don’t get fucked over (especially Gwyn considering her past with men) and both Az and El don’t have to sacrifice integral parts of their characters to be together then I’m cool with it.

I really liked ACOSF and there are so many different paths that the storyline could now go. We got 2 different cliches that could be done too lmao. SJM is a talented writer and I do want to see all my favourite characters get a happily ever after and while I’m excited to see what’s to come, I can’t help but be worried that I might be let down. This series is a great one, but it’s going on for a while. I sometimes feel like it should have just ended after ACOWAR, but I still have faith in the next couple of books. I also wish that this fandom wouldn’t be so nasty when it comes to something as trivial as ships, but oh well! Sorry for the ridiculously long ask, but I had so many thoughts about that bonus chapter!

okay okay so I’ve been on my phone for a couple days and when I read this I was like WOW THIS NEEDS A FULL KEYBOARD RESPONSE BECAUSE SEVERAL POINTS WERE MADE--

first off, I totally agree that this stuff is just discourse and like no one should be fighting or like idfk sending weird death threats over ships or the simple fact that they liked a book or a chapter like it’s not that deep it’s just speculation let people like what they like....but back to the Az bonus chapter...

I specifically want to talk about points B, C, and F. 

B-- so I think you’re so right about Az being desperate for love. like he’s gone so long feeling that unrequited shit for Mor and before maybe it wasn’t a big deal to him because his brothers were seemingly unattached too. but now that Rhys and Cassian are both mates and fucking head over heels for Feyre and Nesta, I think he’s feeling his separation from that happiness acutely and it just seems like star-crossed fate shit that there should be three brothers and three sisters (as cheesy as it feels and sounds and how trope-y it is) so maybe the lust he feels for Elain is just that base need to feel SOMETHING in the face of what he can see and hear and fckn *smell* at the River House and the House of Wind every damn day. and Elain is frankly an easy target. she’s quiet with a sense of humor and a fuckload of trauma....she’s someone for Az to be gentle with and nurture. and when he says “maybe the cauldron was wrong” like you feel the pain and resentment there...that the other sisters were seemingly made for his brothers and he should be left out. I feel bad for him but at the same time....

C--DUDE WHAT THE FUCK ABOUT KILLING LUCIEN AND HOW EASY IT WOULD BE....like that’s some Class A territorial fae bastard shit right there...not seen since the likes of Rowan Whitethorn (though in truth I do love it on him but he was that way for AELIN, HIS MATE)...I don’t think Sarah breathed life into the idea of the cauldron making a mistake for nothing, but I also just don’t think she belongs in the Night Court...all those comments about how much Elain would love Spring Court and sunshine and light....I’ve said this before but the Court of Nightmares solstice scene where Cassian basically calls Elain plain in her Night Court black dress was a huge yikes for me. like the Night Court clearly dims her spirit. it doesn’t fit her aesthetic, you know? anyways I’m getting off track...Azriel’s preoccupation with Elain right now from his POV seems almost entirely sexual so maybe like rethink that bro. 

F--okay yes, while I don’t think Elain is “beholden” to anyone and no male should feel entitled to her or be FIGHTING BLOOD DUELS OVER HER WTF???? I do agree that she has treated Lucien pretty much like shit. she hasn’t tried to understand the situation or the history (at least from what we’ve seen) of the mating bond and how neither of them chose this. like Lucien is as much a victim of the situation as she is, he just has the benefit of understanding what it means in fae culture to have a mate and the pain it causes to reject it. like she just avoids him instead of out-right saying no so he’s just being strung along. like let him go if you don’t want to be with him. and while Lucien has made some shitty decisions (I will never forgive him for his complicity in ACOMAF), this kind of pain shouldn’t be his punishment...like Rhys wouldn’t have to deal in absolutes with Azriel if Elain would just MAKE THE DECISION because then it’s not a challenge for Elain. it’s Elain making a choice, just like they’re fond of allowing women to make in the damn Night Court. my problem with Elain has never been with her femininity or her perceived lack of personality (which is canon now pls) it has always been with her lack of action and the inner circle enabling her to sit and do nothing--EVEN WHEN SHE MIGHT WANT TO. yes I’m talking about that moment where everyone is all up in arms about “exposing” Elain to the darkness of the dread trove and all but throwing Nesta to the wolves...I screamed when Cassian was like “BUT NESTA SHOULD???” ugh pissed me off so much. 

anyways clearly we both have a lot of feelings lmao I will scream about this series until I die I s2g 

[beastars-takes]

Zootopia Takes: The Power of Really Liking Each Other

Our main event, Beastars Takes, will resume soon, but in the meantime I want to talk about one of my favorite movie relationships:

Has this been talked about to death by other people? Yes. But this is my blog and I write it for free so I can do what I want.

Note: this is not a shipping post--this is just an examination of their canonical relationship in the movie and why it rules.

At first glance, this is your typical enemies-to-friends story. I love those. But while the typical arc tends to involve two characters who can’t stand each other, who eventually develop a grudging respect for one another (often through some kind of shared ordeal) and maybe thaw into actual friendliness at the end. Zootopia packs all of that into the first half--by the midway point they are clearly not just allies, but friends, and by the end of the film they’re inseparable.

It’s important to recognize this isn’t just for the hell of it, or just to be cute--the closeness and trust they build is the linchpin of their success in the final moments of the movie.

All the reasons why, after the jump.

Something I talked about in the previous post was the messaging of Zootopia, and I don’t want to rehash it too much here. It’s a movie about prejudice, and the work it takes to overcome it. A key theme (one that it shares with Beastars, incidentally) is that friendships with those who are different from you are hard--but they are worth it.

Part 1: They Hate Each Other! (Right?)

Now...it goes without saying that when these two first meet, they bounce off each other hard. Each is seeing the other at their absolute worst.

Judy can’t stand Nick because he takes every bit of optimism she has about this world and throws it back in her face. She want to use him as a prop in her vision of an equal society, where “not all foxes” are crooks. He laughs at her. He humiliates her. All he has to do is walk away, but he takes his time. He twists the knife.

For his part, Nick sees a laughably ineffectual bunny who condescends to him and threatens him with jail for the crime of...humiliating her. She may not personally be a threat to him, but she wields the institutional power of the ZPD--a power he has plenty of reason to be afraid of--and she does it irresponsibly.

On first viewing, Nick inarguably wins this exchange. He avoids arrest, reads her to absolute filth and leaves her stuck in cement.

And he makes her really sad. Nice!

But, and I don’t pretend to be the first person to have pointed this out, on second viewing it’s obvious he can guess her story so well because it’s basically his story. The only difference, in his mind, is that he’s accepted the reality that he’ll never be allowed to live the life he wants, while she is still vainly pursuing hers.

I don’t know about you, dear reader, but the people I’ve met who have always most pissed me off are the people who remind me of things I hate about myself. The people who seem to embody the flaws I’ve worked to minimize. Nick’s naive hope is what has brought him the most pain in his life. He sees this bunny full of the same naive hope, surmises that she’s facing the same failures he did and yet stubbornly refusing to learn from them. It’s irritating.

Pictured: irritation.

Maybe I am projecting, but if Nick is anything like me, he probably didn’t walk away entirely happy from this exchange. Yes, he “won,” but he was also reminded of everything about himself that he least wanted to think about.

Part 2: They Are Not Very Good at Hating Each Other

So, the thing about Judy is, she is naive. By default, she assumes people are her friend. But she’s not stupid.

Nick assumes she is stupid, not least because she hasn’t wisely given up on her dreams like he has, and...he learns that she maybe not so fun to pick on after all.

So they wind up doing the first part of this enemies-to-friends routine, allies of necessity.

So, naturally, because he is Him, he makes it his mission to torment her.

In fact, we get two whole scenes where all he does he does is watch her struggle and make this face.

The first read of this behavior is that he’s just enjoying the failures of someone he hates. He says as much later. But I would also argue--from a viewer’s perspective--Judy is ridiculously entertaining and charming throughout these encounters. She wears her heart on her sleeve, and it’s hard not to like people like that.

Is there more happening here than just schadenfreude? I won’t pretend to know for sure. But worth considering.

By the time they’re investigating the limousine, his sabotage has diminished into something more like gentle trolling. And you can’t see this face, in context...

...and tell me she isn’t starting to like him, at least a little bit.

He’s also starting to help! By the time they’re past the minor detour of almost being murdered by a mob boss, he’s entirely cooperative, helping her conduct interviews and look for clues. The movie doesn’t call particular attention to this, but it almost did.

Finally, let’s look at Nick’s behavior when they’re being chased by a rabid jaguar. He could have absolutely booked it, with no regard for the cop who was blackmailing him into helping her.

These moments go by so quickly, but they’re hugely revealing of his true character, even before he defends her in front of Chief Bogo.

He picks her up when she falls.

More importantly, when he gets to the skytram, his first instinct isn’t to jump in--it’s to hold the door for her:

He sees she can’t make it, and she even tells him to leave without her. He doesn’t. He holds the door until he can’t anymore, and as a result he’s nearly killed.

Nick is a good boy.

Part 3: They Are Friends Now

She save his life, so he saves her job. This is a key story beat, and it’s a Disney movie, so there’s not a lot of subtlety (except how the specular highlights in Judy’s eyes fade as Bogo asks for her badge--the light literally goes out of her. Go watch).

But it’s such a sweet moment of teamwork--he was contemptuous toward her from the start because she believed in herself. This is the first time she’s simply given up in the whole movie, and he steps up. Because he believes in her now.

And she believes in him! Or, she wants to.

Judy’s supportiveness here is sweet, but it’s also still a little selfish. It’s not that different from their interaction at the ice cream shop, really: she wants to meet a fox who defies stereotypes, who is easy for her to like. Someone who ticks all the boxes to prove her family wrong.

When he starts being more foxy, later--self-identifying as a predator, showing his claws, challenging her--we learn that her supportiveness is conditional.

Am I being too hard on her? Sure. She’s been in bunny country her whole life. She’s new to this and she’s trying. But that’s where she’s at.

But still! They’re friends now. They’re no longer pretending they don’t like each other. Judy’s openly encouraging, Nick is fully in her corner, and we get a few cute sequences where they keep being more and more impressed with each other.

He’s still not above affectionately messing with her, and she’s getting worse at pretending to dislike it.

And he trusts her enough to let her flush him down a toilet...

Which gives us this heartbreaking shot where he thinks she’s drowned. He cares a whole lot about this bunny.

She likes him too! Enough to want to team up on a more permanent basis. This is pretty standard-fare enemies-to-friends stuff now, but considering where we started, and considering they’ve known each other for all of two days? Not bad!

It’s clear this moment means far more to him than it does to her, too. It’s actually taken very little persuading from Judy to get him to step up and be brave and helpful and trustworthy. The fact that he’s turned around and opened up to her so fast suggests he’s been ready for an opportunity like this for his entire life, and never got it. I mean, look at his face.

The foundational flaw in her worldview is still there, though, and it’s about to do almost-irreparable damage to their whirlwind friendship.

Part 5: Fuck!

So Judy gives her press conference, and gives a great example of why police usually answer every question with “the matter is currently under investigation,” or “we’re not prepared to comment further at this time.” Honestly, though, this is on Bogo--I had coworkers who once did some press interviews, and they spent over a week doing media training. They didn’t even break a major kidnapping case. So, you know.

So she repeats some weird race science stuff she assumes is true because someone in a lab coat said it, which is amusingly similar to how race science (or “race realism”) often propagates--people with low-rent doctorates from crappy universities write a bunch of scientifically shoddy material and people say “well, he has a PhD!”

And then Nick has a PTSD flashback? I don’t want to be irresponsible and make an armchair diagnosis, but also...that is absolutely what is depicted on screen.

You’re not immediately “better” after something like this, which is why I cut Nick a bit of slack when he basically blows up their friendship.

Judy...doesn’t get it. It’s completely heartbreaking, because she likes him, and doesn’t understand why he’s mad, and isn’t self-reflective enough to stop and think maybe he has a point. Not until it’s too late. He tests her, and she fails.

Their friendship has always been a little inequal. He’s trusted her with everything, shown her his deepest vulnerabilities. She’s never trusted him completely.

So he leaves.

I don’t want to impugn her professionalism by suggesting she wouldn’t have quit the force if she hadn’t had that friendship-ending fight, but, you know. Maybe.

This is the second time she gives up, and this time he’s not there to pick her up again.

Judy is intensely goal-oriented, and I don’t think she realized what Nick’s friendship meant to her, as the first person in the city who truly believed in her, until it was too late. Judy is sweet and well-meaning but emotional intelligence is not really her strong suit (which is actually cool to see in a female Disney protagonist, imo).

So, while it would have been nice for her to track Nick down immediately and apologize, I think it makes sense for them to spend time apart. Her own self-perception has been shattered, and she needs time to figure out how she went so wrong.

So when she does come back, she delivers one of the best animated apologies I’ve ever seen. Only AtLA compares, in my mind.

Part 6: They Are Much Better Friends Now

Nick forgives her, because of course he does.

(Sidebar--people talk about how he kept her carrot pen the whole time they were apart. He also kept his handkerchief from Ranger Scouts, AND he only wears shirts that match the wallpaper in his mother’s house. He desperately needs a hug.)

Credit to Nick also, who can’t fight and has no police training whatsoever, who has multiple times been almost killed helping her out, now agreeing to help her out again. She’s not even threatening him with jail this time!

We, the viewers, are then rewarded with this great montage of them being best friends.

She’s finally stopped pretending not to be amused by his shenanigans.

(One other sidebar here--Nick is canonically a really gentle character. For all their adventuring, this is only time in the movie he gets physical with anyone: to protect the bunny. Again, he definitely can’t fight and immediately gets smacked across the room. But it’s the thought that counts, right?)

Per the post title, more visual evidence of them really liking each other.

Judy trips on a dead body, and here we get the second time in the movie that Judy tells Nick to leave without her, and he won’t--this time, he refuses explicitly.

Which then gives us the opportunity for the big moment--the culmination of all this care and intimacy and trust.

In order to con Bellwether, she lets him stalk her, and bite her throat. This has been often pointed out, but it’s important--throughout the movie, Judy’s wriggling rabbit nose has been used as a signifier of fear and suspicion. It wriggles when she’s spying on Nick at the beginning. It wriggles like hell when he confronts her after her press conference.

Not here. Doesn’t move. It’s a great, clearly intentional animation choice that tells a close observer (or more likely, a repeat viewer) that she’s completely unafraid.

She trusts him.

I could write a whole other post about how well-scripted this movie is, how every scene is doing half a dozen different things, but the way the personal and the professional come together here, the way the threads of prejudice and friendship and the police case all tie together in this moment. It’s good shit.

This is basically where things end, in terms of character development, but we get a bunch more shots of them clearly adoring each other:

So there it is.

To sum up, certainly not suggesting this movie invented “characters liking each other,” or anything like that. But it goes above and beyond in portraying a friendship that’s not just one born of circumstance, one that’s authentic and unmistakably loving. Characters who enjoy spending time with each other, regardless of what’s going on around them.

I hope everyone is able to experience friendships like that. I absolutely treasure the few I have.

Appendix: The Shipping Thing

I hope I’ve made all this ship-agnostic, which was my intention. I personally like the ship, and I think the reason it resonates with people is because that love and trust and closeness is clearly there, and a romantic relationship creates a lot more easy opportunities for dialing those things up even higher.

I would also argue, if pressed, that the amount of teasing and physicality that happens reads as pretty flirty. If they were humans I knew in real life, I’d definitely think there was something going on there. But I’m an American, where touching and emotional intimacy tends to be read as romantic. Also, animals are a lot more cuddly than humans. So who knows? I think it’s perfectly reasonable to read them as platonic friends until the end of time.

But, one way or another, they love each other a lot. Shout out to this, one of the most emotionally rewarding relationships I’ve ever seen in a cartoon.

[petekaos]

What did you think about the last episode!!

hi hi! so uhhh... this is going to get long and i’ve combined like 10 other asks i want to address, so your ask may be answered here! if you want Rahul’s Take On The 2gether Finale, then brace yourself.

...I didn't really like the last episode, I feel like it could've been a lot better/more emotional

I dunno if it's because I didn't like the last 2 episodes but even though the show literally finished I'm not emotional? The last episode I felt actually really happy watching was ep 9 but now I'm just 'ok, that show finished.' I'm sad bc I thought I would have a stronger reaction to the ending and them getting back together but I'm just meh :/

Really don't want to sound like those annoying people but damn really no kiss scene

I liked the ending, it was okay I guess but gmmtv better prepare for a shitstorm bc so many people didn't lololol

Honestly the best and well written episodes were ones where they still weren't a couple, like 8 and 9 were amazing

Although the finale was good, I feel llke in the future when I want to rewatch my favorite moments from this series, I will go for the first 10 or so episodes more often than not. It kinda feels like 2gether peaked around episodes 7-10, which is perfectly fine!! It was all in all a great series that did what it wanted to do and I’ll always cherish it but, I probably won’t rewatch much of the last two episodes

They made pam even worse!! Before she had her talk with tine anyway!!

My thoughts on the finale: could've been a lot better, could've been a lot worse

2Gether really felt like a giant inflatable castle that was carefully blown up for the past 12 weeks only to let it rapidly and poorly deflate in the end

The ending was fine and was expected but for me it's underwhelming in the sense that the past episodes, especially 4, 8 and 9 were really written in comparison so the finale is kinda meh bc I knew there was gonna be a happy ending. But still the YouTube comments and what some people on tumblr are saying is ridiculous, I don't want to even think about Twitter but imo I don't think any of gmmtvs other shows can top dbks ending like that ending was perfect,

i honestly love that 2gether focused so much on the story and the emotion and became so successful without all the usual fan service. i hope the whole industry takes something away from that! but i still felt like the finale was a little emotionally stunted when it came to tine/sarawat. i just wanted a big YES, I CHOOSE YOU moment, and tine's reappearance and the bracelet scene just didn't do it for me. you know what would have, though? a kiss. or a hug, or holding hands, or something sweet

okay, my friends! here is my opinion on the 2gether finale first, and then i’m gonna address what i personally hold of the more negative response the fandom has shown. i generally thought the finale had... a solid ending. i went into it with absolutely no expectations apart from sarawat’s song and a happy ending, because i knew it would be messy and not as good as ep 4 or 9 etc, considering the sheer amount of open storylines that were left to be resolved in one episode. i knew it would polarise the fandom--but i personally thought the ending was fine! a bit cliche, a bit rushed, but it was okay and it was a good enough ending for me to put 2gether behind me, the first season at least. the bracelet scenes and shots were amazing, the song was incredible (although i wish they would have had sarawat sing a bit more), the conversation pam and tine had was solid as well! there were a lot of things i liked about the finale and bright and win killed their solo acting as always. however, there are some things i wanna get into more detail about that i feel could have been done better, not only as a finale but as a show itself.

time allocated for the storylines. or: plotlines in general. this has been my bone to pick ever since episode 10. not gonna lie, this wasn’t good, especially from ep 10 onwards. there were so many storylines and plotlines that were dragged out further than necessary, and so many plotlines that should have started earlier. best example for this is mil and phukong, the mil redemption storyline should have started in ep 10 and should have had him be sincere for once, and the mil/phukong storyline should have actually made sense from the beginning and started in ep 11 at the latest. the mantype storyline should have also started a bit earlier than that and given us an explanation as to why type was crying at the retreat. however, mantype did pull it off!

writing! this ties in with the first point. the writing felt a bit inconsistent in the last two episodes and it’s a pity, really, that this is one of the downfalls :/ all the actors in this series, from the mains (bright, win, mike, toptap, frank, drake) to the side characters (gunsmile, love, gigie, film, etc.) are such good actors and it’s unfortunate that the last three episodes were a bit :// in terms of writing and plotlines. they all did the best they could with what was written and that... yeah.

conflict. this has to do with the first two points. the finale felt rushed. that’s something that i don’t think anyone really can argue? and i expected that, so i wasn’t too disappointed by it or anything. obviously it would have felt rushed considering the fact that they had to wrap up 3 or 4 episodes’ worth of storylines in one episode, which was a blunder on the writers’ part. the conflict fell flat, then. if they had had pam come in earlier and had tine and sarawat spend more time away from each other, we would have gotten an explosive reaction. i really do think that after they got together for real, the writers struggled to find conflict to keep the story going, jumping from tine’s insecurities to mil to pam for no reason whatever. i think it would have been much better done if we had mil as an antagonist wrapped up and on the road to redemption in ep 10 and had pam come in there, with tine’s insecurities as a b plot. i feel that would have been a bit more gripping. but, hey, guess that’s just me!

order of filming. this has to do with people saying that brightwin’s chemistry was off in the finale. i don’t think it was off, per se, but it was definitely lacking when we compare it to their chemistry in ep 4 or 9 or 10, y’know? that’s because i believe the finale was filmed earlier, when bright and win were still getting to know each other and figuring out how well they could improv. and they can improv, from what we’ve seen! so there really is nothing i can say apart from the fact that it’s a bit disappointing that they decided to film such a pivotal scene at the beginning. if it had been filmed in the end, it would have definitely been better!

flashbacks. the finale needed all the time it was gonna get, and i am disappointed by the amount of flashbacks they used, honestly. i would have cut down on the number of sarawatine flashbacks and used them sparingly when they reunited, because that just... makes sense and evokes emotion in the viewer, you know? the only flashbacks that served well were type’s view of everything and phukong and mil, because they were new. it just... felt a bit inauthentic.

pam. or: the girls in general. there is nothing i can do here but SCREAM. pam should have come in way earlier and replaced mil as the centre point of conflict for ep 11 and 12 to have been as good as the rest of the show, or ep 4 and 9 at least. her character fell so flat and the conflict she brought with her fell so flat as well, honestly. the girls should have been done better--more of earn and sarawat! more of pear! they could have tied into the plot effortlessly!

mil and phukong x mil. yeah this is a... whole ass bulletpoint, unfortunately. call me a clown all you want for expecting him to have at least a half assed redemption arc in the finale but goddamn was that... not good. really bitter over the fact phukong was straight up okay with being a “replacement” for tine even though... that doesn’t even make sense. i just... yeah, this wasn’t good. i feel super bad for frank and drake because they deserve a well written show or at the very least a well written storyline for all of their chemistry and work they put in, considering the fact that they are so so young. i could go on about a good mil arc for ages but i just... yeah i’m writing a fic, so y’all will see.

the reunion. this stems from the flat conflict and the rushed-ness of it all, but yeah. it wasn’t particularly hard-hitting, but i still enjoyed it because it’s sarawat and tine. this has to do with when they filmed as well, and just... because the angst didn’t start early enough for it to hit home. and i really do wish we’d had a scene after that with the both of them, alone. a lot of their things happen with a lot of people around them... and nah.

one year later. bro. bro. bro. the music club thing was cute! but i would have just... loved to see them alone, y’know? a scene of them being alone and intimate, just sitting next to each other on the couch or at a football game or sarawat continuing bringing the cheerleaders snacks, even a year later. them going to another concert. anything where they were just... alone. i wanted to see them together! we got that with mantype and we even got that fucking... scene on the roof where mil and phukong were just fuckin around? yeah? i would have loved to see that with sarawat and tine so much. (also btw pretty sure the rooftop scenes with mil and phukong is also where drake and frank took this photo and it made me so happy dhsndh like... the shot where mil took his hand off phukong’s eyes? i called it immediately and my partner was like ???)

intimacy. chemistry. the biggest thing everyone is talking about. now comes the part that y’all all wanted to know if you’ve been reading this far lmfao, my take on the fact that was no kiss in the finale! and my take is... i expected there to be no kiss in the finale somewhere deep within, and honestly i’m fine with not having a kiss. my only problems with all of this are first of all, that we didn’t get a proper kiss in the entire series and had sarawat kissing tine one-sidedly. secondly, i would have loved verbal intimacy as well! an i love you, or y’know, some hand holding, anything! this is also due to the fact that i believe the series was filmed relatively early on. i just wish... again, that they would have been alone one year later and we could have just seen them being domestic, as we have already seen them!

so those are some of my thoughts on the finale. considering the fandom’s response... i can see why people are upset or disappointed but i don’t think it’s, like, that justified to throw the whole show away as well. yeah, the ending wasn’t perfect, but if you’ve enjoyed the show as a whole... maybe it’s okay, y’know? like, personally, i don’t think i’m ever going to rewatch the finale. but i do love the earlier episodes and i am gonna watch them back at some point, probably! it’s all well and good and valid to criticise the lack of intimacy and kissing in the finale i guess, but if you’re a straight girl then maybe... watch your words. 2gether has portrayed a wonderful love story between two men and to see straight people throw it away as “bromance” or say it’s the “straightest bl of all time” or whatever because of the lack of kisses is kind of hurtful. i am completely open to discussing this with lgbt people, mlm specifically, and you can come talk to me about your thoughts if you’re a straight woman as well. all i’m asking for is that you maybe show a little bit of empathy and respect, y’know? i also do think 2gether peaked around episode 9/10 and i’m fine with that! it gave me so much more than characters and relationships--it gave me the fandom and everyone here and words cannot express how grateful i am for all of you. maybe the last few episodes were poorly written and the finale wasn’t everything y’all hoped for... but i did and do love this show. i cannot wait to see where brightwin go next.

[fall-to-rise-98]

Divergent, Eric+OC

Kingdom Fall:  Amity Reject

Before choosing Dauntless at her choosing ceremony and becoming a true Dauntless member Amity-born Anna never felt accepted in her faction, but she took a leap of faith and learned fast how to make it through initiation. She took her aptitude test and got Divergent though, having shown an affinity for three other factions: Abnegation, Erudite, and Candor. Peace was something she wasn’t accustom to and she had been known to become violent at times, so that ruled out Amity. Dauntless was for the brave and courageous, which she could manage. Although some fears she thought seemed permanently etched onto her soul. Before choosing Dauntless Anna had also never known true love, then she met Eric. The cold, stone-faced leader of the Dauntless initiates. They butted heads from the moment they met with Anna’s sarcastic, cynical personality and his quick temper. It took some time for Anna to break through Eric’s metal armor and as dangerous as she knew it was to be near him, her being Divergent, it excited her all the same. Her life was at risk being around Eric, but this was what she wanted when she left behind Amity: the chance to finally be free. If she had to die eventually, just for the sweet taste of freedom, then she was determined to go out with a bang. 

A/N: Each post for this story may be short or long, depending on how much creative juice I can squeeze out. Each post may or may not be in order, just enjoy the ride. I will update as often as I can, since I am also writing another fanfic for Little Vampire on my main fanfiction account here  ⎯ https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13791424/1/Sweet-But-Psycho. Also, trigger warnings abound: vulgar language, physical abuse, mental abuse, adult themes (y’all know what that means), mentions of suicide (won’t go into detail), death, and of course  ⎯ violence. 

The Choosing Ceremony: Part 1

Raise Hell

Bored. 

Bored. 

Bored. 

Anna felt her eyelids trying to shut of their own accord, thought she chanted in her mind: stay awake, stay awake. 

Stay, a-fucking-wake. 

She wasn’t quite comfortable though, the position she was in. Wedged between her step-father (abusive asshole) and her mother (the lamb in the lion’s den) in a row of stiff, plastic chairs. Surrounded by smiling, juiced-up crowd of other Amity citizens. 

Fools, the lot of them. 

Hopped up on happy serum. Everyone always gets a dose of the sickly sweet, bright pink liquid once a week. It was a potent potion made to “keep the sins of anger at bay,” which Anna found absolutely ridiculous. 

It felt like a violation of free will. 

She happened to like the idea of free will. It was something she longed for and had wanted for many years. Especially when her mother Kimberly decided she wanted to settle down with the man who tormented them both on a daily basis, which Anna could not stand. At all. 

Sometimes she would lay in her bed at night, unable to sleep and covered in bruises, feeling sorry for her mother. Sometimes Anna thought her mother would have been better off growing a spine, just like she did. 

She didn’t want to accept the abuse any longer, especially after the incident almost a year ago on her sixteenth birthday. It was the most terrifying moment she ever experienced in her life. 

The night was rainy, but it wasn’t noiseless. She could hear the faint melody of the Amity sector. The shrill singing of small children, the merry laughter of adults. It was all outside of her house though. There was a different kind of noise inside her home, where happiness and joy seemed a million miles away. 

It was the sound of silence, a calm before the storm. The atmosphere in the house was thick and could not be cut so easily with a knife. A heavy, ominous presence hung in between the casual “pass the salt” or “how was school today?” chatter. No “did you have a good day?” 

No “happy birthday, sweetie.” 

Andrew sat at her left at the kitchen table during dinner, as quiet and menacing as a snake slithering in the grassy fields. Waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike. 

Strike you dead, if by the look on his face. 

Something was getting under his skin bad and her mother was doing nothing except cowering in her seat to her right, trying to keep up a happy charade with a fake smile plastered on her face. It faltered often, but no one ever commented. 

No one cared enough to speak out and ask some serious questions. 

To involve themselves in our family drama, to help. 

Help was not something the Amity community usually gave out, from kindness of their hearts or just out of pure curiosity. Why does Anna keep to herself and always has a negative outlook on life? Why does Kimberly never talk to anyone? 

To everyone else, Andrew is viewed as an angel. A model citizen with a charming attitude and good soul. 

If only the Amity people would stop turning a blind eye to everything around them. Maybe the world would really be a better place. Everyone just might be able to get along. 

Then Andrew turned to her with a smile on his face, it was sudden and filled with dazzling teeth. He was a handsome man for his age, mid-forties with a head full of thick salt and pepper hair. Green eyes the color of jade, staring her down with malice. Hardened and angry. 

What had she done this time? She was being responsive to every question or comment, asked by either of them. Eating her dinner quietly otherwise, head bent down to avoid confrontation. It was a defense mechanism Anna knew worked best with Andrew and most of the time she tried hard to keep her step-father placate. 

This was how you survived in her house. 

“How was your day, baby girl?” 

What. 

The. 

Fuck. 

Anna snapped to attention, her startled dark-blue eyes meeting the amused expression on Andrew’s face. She was taken aback at the pet name, one she hadn’t heard him use in years, and glanced at her mother. 

She hesitated, a pause of breath which irritated Andrew. 

Kimberly was staring at her second husband with the look of a frightened animal, gaping mouth and teary-eyed. There was something in her eyes, all wide and watery, that made Anna’s blood run cold. 

It was a look she only saw once. 

The first time Andrew took his anger out on them. 

But that was then and this is now. 

Andrew was glaring at Anna now, slamming his knife down on the table. “When I ask a question I expect you to know the answer immediately and respond back to me. Have we not had this conversation before?” 

Her mother surprised her. 

She spoke out against Andrew, although as timid and small as the plea was. 

“Andrew, don’t. Please.”

Andrew turned away from Anna then, but Anna knew it would only be brief and the strike would be swift. Once for speaking out of turn, across the mouth. 

Twice for telling him what to do, on the hand. 

Three times for standing up to him, which Anna only experienced one time. 

It made her angry. He shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this. Her fingers gripped tightly to her silverware as she studied the scene before her. 

Prepared to either watch as her step-father descended upon her mother or step in between the two with the threat of a studded belt across the ass. 

Andrew was satisfied only mildly when Kimberly shrunk even further into her chair and raised an eyebrow, “Why not? You never said anything when I brought it up before. So I obviously assumed I had the right to ask Anna herself.”

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. 

What in the flying fuck was going on between these two? 

Something was off with both of them, a feeling of dread filling the pit of her stomach making it toss and turn the food contents she was previously piling down her throat. 

Though fear crept in there was also confusion and mild curiosity. Alarm bells rang off in her head though. Voices telling her to run away, get up from the table and run away, get away from the whole situation now. 

Kimberly glanced over at her daughter and choked on a sob, “Happy birthday. I love you, baby, I hope you know that.” 

She felt sick suddenly, then jumped to her feet at the feeling of a rough hand brushing her thigh. Anna felt the scream in her throat, but managed to keep it from filling the house. 

Andrew would not like that. 

It could have been a mistake. 

But he was grinning at her now, glancing from the expression on her face to the face of her mother. Kimberly felt anger course through her momentarily and she blurted out, “Stop it! Don’t you touch her like that.” 

In an instant, as fast as a lightning bolt appearing and disappearing, Andrew was on his feet with the knife and leaping over the table at Kimberly. 

Anna felt her vision blur for a moment, then go blood red at hearing her mother’s horrifying scream. She heard the plates fall from the table and shatter, heard the chair her mother was sitting in hit the ground with a thud as he tackled her to the floor. 

It filled her with absolute rage. 

Andrew had only intended on scaring Kimberly, threatening her with the knife against the throat, but enraged as Anna jumped onto his back he flung her off with ease. 

Then turned to her, a frightening smile on his face. 

The smile of a psychopath. 

“You see, I had a little talk with your mother the other night after dinner. It was really interesting. You left rather quickly, talking about how you were going to check up on a friend before bed. That was a mistake, you know. You have no friends.” 

Anna was winded, having hit the table with her shoulders which scraped it’s wooden legs across the oak flooring, and hitched a breath at Andrew’s words. At this point Kimberly was scrambling away, for the stairs, leaving Anna to fend for herself. 

Why wouldn’t her mother do something about this man? 

What was going on this time? 

“As you know your mother is 8 years older than I am and these past couple of years together have not suited her well. But you, my dear, have grown into a fine young woman and I feel it may be time for a change around here.” 

She scrambled to her feet, prepared now to defend herself until she couldn’t. 

This was one battle she wasn’t going down without a fight for. 

What needed to change was his ego, his pride. His sadistic cruelty. 

Andrew was faster, grabbing onto her legs as she started to run. He lunged at her like a football linebacker and they both fell to the floor. He laughed when she wriggled underneath him and fought to turn her on her back. 

“Come on, don’t you want to wrestle with your step-daddy?” 

Since then Anna began to train during her free time. Of course there was no use for gym equipment in Amity because of the farming business, but she had seen videos on her tablet (stolen from one of the Erudite-born at school) on how to build muscle and strength. 

Exercise videos that were played during health class, but not performed in the school. There was no physical education in her school that required actual physical labor. That was saved for after school. Chores, either at home or on the farm. 

She didn’t want to ever be put in that position again. Since that night Anna was preparing herself, physically and mentally, for the choosing ceremony. The choosing ceremony she was finally attending after six months of hard work and waiting. She would be free. 

She would finally be happy. 

Andrew was expecting her to remain in Amity, he had said so himself the night before, but Kimberly had not spoken a word in three days. 

Anna glanced back and forth between them both, hiding behind a curtain of pale blonde hair. It was freshly washed as of this morning and she was wearing tan shorts with a bright, yellow tank-top. She knew once she chose Dauntless she would be running towards the train with the other initiates, she always came to the ceremonies with her “family” and she loved watching the Dauntless run for the fast-moving locomotive. 

They were always shouting and screaming, but out of pure excitement. 

It was their new beginning and now it would be her new beginning. 

Although sitting quiet and stiff among the other Amity she was listening for the names of each new Dauntless initiate. 

Hardy, Ian. Candor.

Higgins, Samantha. Erudite.

Jonas, Zeke. Candor.

Larson, Holiday. Abnegation.

Maddox, Avery. Erudite.

Marsden, Jamie. Abnegation.

“Thatcher, Anna.” 

It was time. 

Her time.

[akimmito]

Heroes are made by the path they choose

Previous | AO3 | Next

_______________

Chapter 6

Jason walks the corridors of the mansion until reaching the entrance to the cave, he feels confident enough to return knowing that the only inhabitants of the mansion are Dick, Tim and Alfred. Bruce and his idea for Batman Inc. have him going around the world... except Paris, why hadn't anyone noticed what was happening in France? A little look at the country and the fucking Constitution has an exclusive item for heroes and vigilantes! Fully proven, the United States fears success. France developed a good relationship with its vigilantes and they are a kind of team without taking orders from each other, but recognizing the authority where it should be.

Certainly nobody expected it, because they are surprised to see it arrive. Dick half-dressed in Batman and Tim's costume completely put, only Alfred remains calm and chances are it's because he already knew it would be there. One must only accept that Alfred is omniscient.

"Hey. Did anyone know that Paris has vigilantes?"Outside the sentimental greetings or whatever, he goes straight to the point. What does it matter that this is the first time you've spoken to them in five years?

"No?"Dick questions confused, they have not looked at Paris in years because they have been calm… disturbing, if he think about it, especially the last seven years, no traffic network of any kind connects with Paris or France in general, that must have caught his attention more than it did. Although if there are vigilantes, It would explain a little. "Since when?"

"Seven years, apparently. I was researching with Roy and we found some information, but as you will see, I don't have the resources you have here. It caught my attention that, according to this boy from twitter, there is also a team of heroes and they are two separate groups, it seems."

That captures more attention from of them, Tim accepts the USB memory that Jason gives him and some images taken by phones and some captures from Parisian news appear. He manages to classify it, putting name with appearance.

"It seems that the leader is Suzaku, I estimate that he could be my age. No idea of their civil identity, they use a kind of transport with portals and I don't know if it's magic or technology. Probably the called Augur is the one in charge of taking them from one place to another, that them to reach the scenes immediately. "

"Interesting. Can you explain us?"Dick gives the free pass to his younger brother to update them with the information, they will not go to a city with vigilantes (he knows that it bothers when they appear in his without warning), but knowing the situation will allow them to be careful if they cross their paths.

"Insurance. Let's see, replacement, unfold all the photographs and I will explain each one of them. What I managed to discover through twitter, because it is the only source of constant information about them. The media says little or almost nothing, beyond mentioning them and thanking them for their services. "

Tim just obeys, saving his thoughts about it. He did know about the vigilantes, but he didn't see it necessary to inform anyone, he even spoke to one of them while he was there, Caelum explained the ways in which the city was working and how they reached a balance with the government, something that took them two years to build and they hoped they would not have third parties hanging around without warning them. Sure, he's not going to tell any of that.

"Well, Suzaku, leader, has magical knowledge, according to users she has put in place safeguards to protect places of interest such as the so-called Akuma Refuges, I don't know what they are, the hospital and health centers, in addition to some government buildings that can also serve as shelters. She's normally paired with Corvus and five days ago she appeared on patrol with Thuban, everyone speculating that he's her son because of dark hair. They talk about her being kind and lethal, emphasis on lethal. One user listed the martial arts styles she mastered, I counted twelve combined with a style much like yours, Dick. "

Dick smiles and looks with some interest at the short-haired little lady, the costume fits perfectly leaving an ideal mobility and reflects a lot that does tricks, there is nothing in the costume that can get in her way. He's curious if she uses any type of weapon, they are not visible to the naked eye.

"Corvus, he seems second in command, his costume reminds me of mine... he seems to have the mettle of a trained assassin. According to users, it's rare that he speaks and if he does it is to give orders, otherwise, they mention that he's cold and even rude, very distant, his weapons use real bullets, but it's rare that he goes to the extreme of using them. There are many strange theories where he's also paired in a romantic relationship with Suzaku, Paris really is strange..."

Tim just stares at the image of the blonde in a costume that mimics the forms of a military one very well and not surprised that Jason knows so much, Paris enjoys talking about her heroes and vigilantes, they are almost celebrities and  they resign themselves to being the professionals who are ignoring all comments on the internet as best as possible.

"Genbu is ruthless and tends to scold civilians when they are endangered by ridiculousness, close combat and needles, acupuncture type, but as an attack, it sleeps their limbs and makes them easier to handle. Byakko usually deals a lot with civilians, she always asks questions and jokes with them, she wears a kind of yellow half-helmet and is really the only thing with color in her entire costume. Seiryuu is... according to twitter, a soulless ex-killer who ignores civilians unless she threatens them with her sword because they have purposely put themselves in danger, they call her Ice Queen... they consider her worse than Corvus. "

Tim laughs, he can vouch for it. While he only spoke to Caelum, the other two were nearby and seemed to want to point their weapons at him. If it wasn't for Suzaku holding them by the shoulders, he thinks they would have been close to him threatening him, she was sweetly dangerous as honey with poison. Remembering that, he decides that it's better to give his own information.

"Before you continue, why are you telling us this? You could just go to Paris and see everything with your own eyes. ”He doesn't pretend to be rude, but it seems he was from the annoyed look Jason gives him.

"Because, genius, I don't have the resources to go there and, as I said at the beginning, neither to investigate them further from here. You should sleep more, your brain hardly works. "

"Jason..."

"Whatever, I'll continue..."

"The easiest to speak are Pyxis, Caelum and Black Metal. Despite the fact that Suzaku is kind, she turns the whole conversation in her favor and always has Corvus around, which makes you feel like you are going to be shot if you neglect for a second, the feeling is worse if Seiryuu is present..."

"Tim, how do you know that?" Dick is curious, especially since he never mentioned having met any team of heroes, but, if he's honest with himself, Tim is like a little version of Bruce and that man won't say anything until it is absolutely and strictly necessary that should know and only says a part. It's frustrating.

"I was in Paris while looking for Bruce and I met them, being attacked by criminals definitely caught their attention. The information on Twitter, although accurate, doesn't do them justice, Paris only sees what the MT lets them see, they have managed to pass next to Batman without him noticing, that is a great feat. And I was able to meet them only because they stopped wanting to know some things, it was basically an exchange of information. "

"I get it."

"Do you know anything about their identities?" Jason asks, is what makes him curious. Little problem inherited from Batman? Yeah, It definitely frustrates not knowing anything.

"Not. I only know what everyone knows, but at least one or more of them must have money, their costume were of incredible quality and I have only seen that level of protection in us. Bruce never skimped on expenses for the costumes, I guess they didn't either..."

They nod to his answer, Tim is excellent at noticing details, so they may consider him to be true information.

"I'm curious, but if they're doing a good job, it's not our business, Jay. We can go browse Paris, but we definitely shouldn't get into her business. "

"You want to see Suzaku, right?" Tim lets out a sigh, why did Jason have to mention the stunts? He didn't say it directly, but made the suggestion when buying his styles. No one can do half the tricks he do, that there is someone in the world who can accompany him in his inhuman stunts and stretches, he must be excited...  and that she has a tight costume and a beautiful body should only generate more expectation.

"I would like to meet her."

"Professionally or in bed?" Jason is more direct and hits just where Tim's thoughts were heading.

"You offends m…"

"Dick, you've had sex with half the women you know..." Tim cuts him off, it's no secret to anyone how many lovers he's had over the years. He's very surprised that he doesn't have a lost son out there, but that only shows how careful he's.

"Yes, man, even villains. Gives you no shame?" Dick snorts at him.

"You have no right, Jay. I remind you that you slept with Talia and two of my girlfriends... in my bed!"

"They could not resist my charms, I think it was your foult. And Talia, well, I have nothing in my defense. "Tim sighs and gets up from his seat, he considers that it’s better to go to bed, he will not be able to work with those two arguing and he could well use a couple of hours of sleep.

He just hopes that if they go to Paris, Dick doesn't really intend to have sex with Suzaku. It gives him the impression that Thuban doesn't get the nickname Demon Boy for nothing and if he's really her son, well maybe Dick won't come back alive from there.

___________

Tim Drake @TimDrakeW_

Can I change families? I want new brothers, please.

____________

Talia Al Ghul.

Damian never expected or wanted to see her again. Why is she here? He doesn't want her close. In the midst of his discomfort, he can only frown at his progenitor.

He writhes, letting himself fall to knees against the hard asphalt, he feels his head throb with pain and each breath is more difficult than the last, it's as if fire breaks through his nose and burns his lungs little by little.

"My son." He growls when he hears her. It's an Akuma attack, he reasons, she's not real. "At last I find you. "She's not real, right? " I will take you back home. "

"You're not my mother." He manages to speak despite feeling his throat tear with every word. "I was just a tool for you and Grandpa, they made it clear... they got rid of me. "He looks furiously at the figure of his... no, Talia. They knew it, he's totally convinced that they knew it...

"That is not true, what that woman told you... "

"My mother said nothing to me! You sent me to my death, it was impossible for me to survive even if I completed the mission... "

Damian still has dreams of that mission, of his planning, of everything he did up to the inevitable outcome in what turned out to be the enemy base with around fifty targets scattered throughout the small underground fortress.

He complains and a groan escapes his throat, if he were using the prodigy would it be different? He hears a deep voice beside him, but everything is suffocated by Talia's presence and the pain that breathing generates.

A few more minutes and he falls unconscious, his mind plunges into the haze of memories that still haunt him.

The full moon hangs over the night sky at its highest point, the lighting is sufficient to allow you to see the entire perimeter from the trees. Damian watches the assassins move around, standing guard, looking like they are waiting for an attack, and he wonders if they have discovered it, although from their posture they seem to expect something more frontal and not as stealthy as their plans. It doesn't matter, he will only go for his target and if someone gets in the way, he will kill him on the spot. It just needs to be fast and efficient.

He jumps out of the tree to head towards the fortress, taking advantage of the minute it takes to turn around, just in time, when he has climbed the roof, the guards are positioned at the place where he climbed. He go his way as his plan how to get them out of the way, it would be much better if he get rid of all the low-level organization.

He walks the corridors cautiously, he has disabled several targets and has hidden them, they are dead, of course, the surprise factor gave him that benefit. Everything is going well, as expected, the group are just a bunch of incompetents.

Damian manages to reach his target without a scratch, but can't find it where it should be. He clicks his tongue in disgust, it's a setback.

"I am offended that Ra’s believes that a child will be enough to kill me. Bad luck for you, now, be a good boy and serve as training for my new power."

Damian turns to the origin of the voice and sees a man in a lilac costume simulating the standard equipment of the League of Assassins, his skin seems to glow in pink tones and his eyes turned dark... he looked discordant, very dark and colorful at the same time. He frowns and attacks him, pulls out his swords, but... his attack doesn't touch him.

The entire room suddenly begins to spin and as he tries to recover, the traitor is on him with twin swords running through his abdomen. The blood gushes immediately when the swords are removed and this time the dizziness is from the blood being lost at alarming rates.

The last thing Damian sees is a woman dressed in black wearing a whip with silver inscriptions, using it to grab the traitor by the neck, even in low light he can recognize her blue eyes that seem to glow much more as the darkness swallows his consciousness.

_________

Ladybug come back @ LadybugHero_89

Paris became Tokyo-3? Will an Eva appear? Is this night a NGE and The Mist crack fic?

Bro don´t leave me alone @DDD_Lol214

I don't want to be in that fog, brother, the screams are terrifying.

MarcusGentleman @ TheMaster_091

I can see Ladynoir fall into the mist, hell, no one warned me that I would be experiencing an angel's siege.

____________

Ladynoir jumps on the huge rhombus, it's certainly peculiar and their could not believe that there is a person inside. They must break through the outer cortex to reach the real Akuma and her objective, therefore her powers are the best point of action. It's a real problem that he had a force field.

"An AT field! I can't believe it. ”He manages to hear Max over the communications before falling straight into the mist. She can also listen to others talk.

"What is an AT field?" Kagami almost growled at the Akuma's troublesome abilities.

"It's basically a shield... which is troublesome, I think only the cataclysm could go through it if it has the same defensive properties as the anime."

"Perfect. I'll give the new Hawkmoth points for achieving a new level of annoyance. "Chloe complains from the roof of the Luxembourg Palace, everyone is analyzing the situation, but seeing that he has a shield that they won't be able to get through, they just have to wait for Marinette to recover… what is taking a time.

"It seems the mist is a problem." Nathaniel exposes everyone's concerns. If it were a normal mist, Ladynoir would be back on the rooftops by now.

"Many civilians report screaming in the mist, some liken it to a scene from a horror movie..." Kagami reviews the app with her yo-yo, looking at all the testimonies they are giving. That helps them determine the Akuma's powers.

"Ilusions?"Nathaniel questions.

"Probably." Felix agrees.

"What if it's not mist?" Luka questions, capturing everyone's attention, who wait for him to continue. "It could be a type of gas, they should collect a little and analyze it. That way they can use the filters on their weapons and not run the same fate as Ladynoir. "

And as they try to regroup, on the streets, just below the Akuma. Marinette meets Talia Al Ghul's voice, the suit protects her enough not to be so affected by the mist, but she still feels pain when breathing.

If you think you can steal my son, you are wrong. I'll take him back.

Marinette ignores her, it's just a voice in the middle of a mist caused by an Akuma. Yes, she fears that Damian decides to go with Talia or his biological father (even though the boy has not told her who he is), but she's in the middle of a battle and she's no longer girl, she has trained her mind and her fears will not be what stops her. However, without the cane, she should run towards the buildings, but between the voice and the pain when breathing, it becomes difficult.

He prefers to be with his REAL family.

She continues to move towards the closest building, it's incredible that the mist doesn't let her see the Akuma, but that's the way it's. It seems like a world apart... and seeing that it's not really moving in the direction she expects, she begins to think that it's.

He will never love you. You are not his real mother.

Marinette, surprisingly, stumbles and falls. She complains, she had spent years without tripping and much longer without falling by her own feet. When she looks up, she's surrounded by a body, she holds her breath, they are the people who were close when the mist appeared and without any protection, they only perished being chased by their fears.

It's beautiful to see, these scenarios are the ones that Damian loves.

Marinette blocks her voice, ignoring it. If there are civilians here… Damian should have been close and if he couldn't get away, he was trapped… Oh, no.

She gets up again and, trembling a little because they are all dead, begins to search, hoping that she doesn't meet the body of her little boy.

But she's not the bearer of the black cat for nothing, she sees it, her black suit with the details in green and runs towards him, stumbling again and falling to her knees in front of him. She takes him in her arms, he barely breathing.

"Oh honey." She hugs him to her chest and touches her communications. "Augur?"

"Oh, what a relief you communicate. We need you to break through the Akuma's defenses. "

"I understand, but you open a portal, please. The mist doesn't allow me to find high points and I lost the cane... also, I have Thuban here."

"Okay, I'll bring you to the MT for Plagg to eat something before you use his power."

"That would be fine. "

A portal opens in front of her and advances as fast as she can to avoid the mist passing through its, the difference is felt when she breathing. She drops down next to the transformation, hugging Damian tighter. Longg comes out of a hiding place inside the costume.

"I try talking to him, if he transformed he would last longer... but it seems he was looking at his birth mother." The little dragon looks with concern at his current owner and then looks at she with resolution. "Combine my prodigy with Plagg's, my beams must be strong enough to cross that field, so you won't leave him a chance to replace his shield."

"Okay, let's do that."

____________

Just Robert @PoorButterflies

District VI is a disaster. Suddenly I no longer miss Gabriel Agreste as a villain, he was not so creative with his evil.

Dick Grayson @TheFlyingGrayson

It seems that a visit to Paris is in sight.

Roy @RoyHarperQ

@TheFlyingGrayson I'm not surprised that you go.

Jason @IAmYisus_XD

@TheFlyingGrayson @RoyHarperQ See, Dick? Everyone knows your ways.

Polaris Vermilion @Elgato_Solaris

Is one of @BruceWayneOfficial's adoptive boys coming to Paris? Oh oh. Hey, @TheFlyingGrayson! You must know @MarieLenoir goes the same way as your adoptive father haha

[bathroombreaks]

gg 1x01 rewatch

the questions are from @pynkhues, you can find them here.

1. What was your favourite scene of the episode? Tell us why!

oooh it’s def the scene where the girls are getting ready to rob fine & frugal. i just find it hilarious that they’re about to rob a store and they’re talking about how their kids are doing in school?? like, what absolute lunatics!! and i think it sets up their dynamic very well right from the beginning, idk. everyone’s always saying that the three girls have a very lived-in chemistry and i agree and i think you can feel it right from this first scene of them together

2. Was there any scene that missed the mark for you? And if so, how?

idk?? i’m very bad at reading and watching things critically, i’m very easy to please, i think?? and this ep just makes me pleased as punch!! but i guess that the scene with beth and amber, while funny, doesn’t really hit the mark for me?? idk, the way she’s framed as a “beautiful dummy” and not as much at fault as dean kind of irks me. i totally get that dean is the married one, but amber clearly knew he was married and somewhat regularly saw his wife, i don’t think she should really be absolved of that. and, idk, i don’t like that she basically got a prize for cheating - like, “here, you helped my husband cheat on me, so take some money to go live your dreams” is such a weird response?? beth was very scathing in the delivery and i get the point was for amber to be out of their lives but, like, still?? why not just tell dean he has to fire her?? this just further proves that beth is an idiot and an absolute lunatic, which we already knew

3. Let’s talk about the Big 6 Character Intros – Beth, Ruby, Annie, Dean, Stan, Rio. What did you think? What did you like? What did you dislike?

oooh i really liked all of them!!!

i absolutely love annie’s, it’s so fun with the car speeding and then with her banter with ben. i love the way they set up their dynamic right from the get go!!

and then ruby and stan’s intro was also amazing!! you get right away that they love each other so much and are so supportive of each other!! the way they both gesture when sara is talking about the women standing next to the men is so cute!!! i love it!!

rio’s is also amazing, he’s a snarky little bitch right from the get go and they really did a great job of also surprising us, thanks to the camera angle, and really driving home that he’s the boss.

i think the one i liked the least is actually beth and dean’s?? i mean, they do a good job of immediately letting you know that beth is the overworked mother and dean is the lazy, good-for-nothing husband - i mean, she’s running around, taking care of everything, and then he just strolls in and asks the kids to go to the car, without even having his tie done. but i think it’s a little misleading and i think it’s one of the reasons why the fandom (including myself) maybe has a harder time accepting beth staying with dean (aside from the fact that dean is a fucking asshole and he deserves nothing less than a horrible death, i mean)?? it really sticks in your mind this contempt she seems to have for him?? and, of course, then you get the flashback to beth getting waxed for him, and so you understand that they were maybe going through a bit of a rough patch but she wanted to work through it, but what sticks in your mind is that first scene, where she’s full of contempt, not even able of saying a perfunctory i love you back. and since they seem to want to drag out the boland marriage as much as possible, i think they kind of failed there.

4.   Ruby tells Stan to fix the damn door! Is Stan an amazing handyman? A terrible one??? 

i think stan is anywhere from ok to amazing, they’re just so overworked that he hasn’t had time?? idk, paired with the fact that he says he’s pulling a double at the beginning of the ep and that it doesn’t seem to be a new or uncommon thing, it just reads to me like a thing he really does want to take care of at some point but hasn’t found the time to do yet

5. Do you think Beth, Ruby or Annie had a way out of their individual financial situations that didn’t involve crime?

in short: nope. in long:

ruby and stan are desperate. they mention stan’s parents at some point, but i assume they just don’t have the money to help them?? and, i mean, they’re both working double shifts and they mention that they’ve had their gofundme page up for years. i think if they had any other way they absolutely would’ve already taken it, for sara’s sake.

we can assume from the flashbacks we get in 2x08 that annie and beth didn’t have as stable a home life as all that. i assume that either their parents are both now dead or they just have no communication with them. either way, they don’t have them as a safety net.

when it comes to annie, she’s working a minimum wage job, driving a very shitty car and her kid’s laptop has been broken for a month without her being notified, because said kid knows they don’t have the money to get a knew one. she does ask for help from the richest person the girls know later (that’s how i think they phrased?? i’m pretty sure), her ex, who promptly says no. so, yeah, it’s safe to say she doesn’t have a way out of her financial situation either.

and, in regards to beth, i think she would absolutely help ruby (and annie) if she could. so the fact that she doesn’t, paired with the fact that we get mentions later that this is not the first time dean has managed to basically bankrupt the car dealership, makes me assume that either the bolands were living close to paycheck to paycheck, but stable enough that she didn’t worry, or that she did think they had some spare money and did give that to them when she could?? because i don’t see how she would not give ruby the money for sara, if she thought she had it, especially when she does it later in the season.

so, no, i don’t really think any of the girls had safety nets or ways to get out of their financial situation. except for beth. she could’ve gotten a job. i know it would’ve been hard because of her lack of work experience, but she could’ve at least tried instead of immediately jumping to robbery!!

6. Is Beth’s backsplash dope? Or was Rio just being a dick??

both!! i mean, i personally like the backsplash, but rio was absolutely just being an asshole, whether or not he did believe it was dope had nothing to do with it.

7. Five major story locations were set up this episode – Ruby’s house, Beth’s house, Annie’s apartment, as well as Fine & Frugal and Boland Motors. Was there anything that jumped out for you about these locations in this episode? Do you think that they were well established given what happens in each across the course of the series?

ok so i don’t know enough about like tv shows and storylines and all that stuff to answer this, i’m sorry. but, like, i think it’s very cool that fine & frugal is robbed in the first and last episodes of season 1, it’s a fun full-circle type of thing, and i love that we’re introduced to boland motors via dean’s affair and beth’s destruction of it because it’s something that permeates the place throughout the whole time?? i mean, beth later “borrows“ one of the cars, rio smashes the corvette because of beth, it gets raided by the fbi because of beth’s illegal activities - beth is always destroying it, even when she’s not literally destroying something like in that first episode. and in season 2 we have beth fully realising just how deep dean’s betrayal was in the middle of the boland motors showroom. both of those things are always there!! it’s cool. and saying that, i mean, they kind of went the same route with boland bubbles, if you think about it?? we get dean cheating on her there, her fully realising how deep his betrayal is via gayle’s comments and then her clearly robbing the place?? boland bubbles really is just a continuation of boland motors

8. We met lots of supporting characters this episode too – in particular Boomer, Baby Tyler, Amber and Greg. Based off of what we saw of them in this episode, pick one, and tell us what you think!

i love baby tyler and amber!! i love that we’re introduced to baby tyler being all smiley and y’know a little bit ridiculous eating ice cream while on the job and maybe obviously inept because of it. and maybe you expect him to not do anything during the robbery because of that but then he really tries?? he thinks he’s facing off with 3 armed criminals and he really goes for it, he doesn’t cower like boomer!! he’s adorable!! and amber i already talked about and i know i was a bit harsh but i really do love her!! her oblivious comments are gold.

9. Screenshot and/or tell us about your favourite character look~ this episode.

frankly, this ep doesn’t really have any stand out looks for me?? the one exception is annie’s outfit when she picks up ben in the porsche. you can really tell how happy she is that she could one up nancy, that she’s proud of herself because she’s gonna get to give ben the laptop he needs.

10. This episode gives us some sharp character notes on Beth, Ruby and Annie – from Beth’s capacity for violence to Ruby’s visceral anger around being ignored, particularly when it comes to her daughter’s wellbeing, to Annie’s tendency to run a mile when given an inch. Is there a moment that stood out to you, particularly in light of future seasons?

ohhh i mean, there’s something to be said about beth’s capacity for violence uh? she keeps refusing to acknowledge it, because that doesn’t fit her stepford wife without a pulse image as annie calls it, but it’s always there - she’s always ready to blow up and throw some keys at your face. and ruby’s response to being ignored kind of screws her over?? she was very lucky jt only wanted her address for his nephew and didn’t become a second mary pat. idk, i’m sorry. like i said, not very good at critical thinking.

[skamamoroma]

Meg, always kinda wanted to ask....what’s your opinion on the actress who plays Sana in SkamIt not being Muslim?

This is the only post I’ll make on the issue ❤️

Skam is all about providing hope regardless of the issue or story. It is about giving the viewer an experience, giving them a close insight into a person person so that they can understand their story and provide hope.

Representation matters. A lot. It gives people a sense of belonging, of being seen and valued and appreciated and, above all, gives them a role model. It also teaches people who are not from that “minority” (for want of a better word) a new viewpoint and it can educate. It’s wonderful.

I am not a Muslim. I am not a POC. I have no religion at all. I will never understand what it is to be either. I have friends who are one or both so I have some knowledge of some issues my friends face from a closer perspective but I am absolutely never going to know what it is to experience life as a religious (and obviously religious) person or a person of colour.

My opinion matters here as much as anyone’s who is a non-Muslim non POC, aka only so far. The same way as I identify with the LGBT+ storylines, if someone none LGBT+ were to weigh in and say something about stuff they have no personal experience or knowledge of them that’s not at all helpful but if they have general comments about the storyline or the character or the behaviours then awesome! That’s a viewer 😊 that’s what you’re meant to do. But I am not going to devalue or overpower the opinion of someone who is a Muslim POC because their voice on these things deserves to be heard.

Having a Muslim person play a Muslim role is undoubtedly going to be a wonderful thing. Iman brought so much to her role. She gave understanding and depth and I believe even offered Julie tips and info. That’s special. That’s a community being represented by someone who gets it. She received a LOT of backlash for playing Sana from her own community and the guts that took. I imagine she realised the good a character like Sana could and was doing. Do you need to be a Muslim to play a Muslim role? The same way you don’t need to be gay to play the role of a gay teenager or you don’t have to have a mental illness to play someone with bipolar etc etc etc. There’s no requirement there but sometimes things more nuanced than that. Sometimes the need to further a cause is perhaps a bigger one and I absolutely see the value in a real, young Muslim girl playing that role and I can see how the impact can be felt as I’ve been in this fandom a long time.

Italy as a country needs Skam. Many countries need it but Italy’s political landscape is tricky and I have listened to Italian friends and lovely Italian folks on here who have expressed how needed an Italian s3 (Marti) and s4 (Bea) is. I have had Italian Muslims message me to tell me they’re thrilled Sana’s season is even a thing in their country. They have told me that they see that things are different there than in other countries who have Skam. They have commented that they themselves are a white Muslim and feel like Sana looks like they do in their country as they are hijab wearers too. This too can not be discounted. Political landscapes DO impact media and fiction because perhaps sometimes there is even more nuance at play. Perhaps sometimes there is stuff that people in other countries do not have to think about and perhaps to have a tv season shown and understood and accepted some things have to be a little different. These are things I have been told by Italian Muslims.

I am not a fan of how the issue has been handled. Besse is a tricky dude. He’s not subtle and he’s not someone who easily handles criticism even if it is constructive. He does handle it but he also makes snap reactions and it ain’t helpful. But he also cares a great deal. Julie Andem has said he’s the main producer to contact her and discuss, he has taken months to get to know and to understand Muslim youth in Italy, he cares about the show and characters on an immeasurable level, even going so far as to single handedly try to do the social media for s3 himself because they were having so many issues with Timvision. This is a man who gives a shit. He isn’t always right and sometimes goes about stuff in an less than ideal way but he gives a shit and I have respect for anyone who does.

This whole “no other Muslims came to casting”. I don’t know how true or untrue that is. I am sure there are many young talented Muslim or POC actresses in Italy but how am I to comment if that statement is true or not. I wasn’t there. Perhaps a little more insistence could have been had to find someone else?

Beatrice got the role. She’s a young actress, young lady and this is a huge acting gig. She is also perhaps lacking in education a little. Should she be ridiculed, put on the spot, forced to answer complex questions at the drop of a hat and expected to be a walking Wikipedia of social matters? Should she be ganged up on or singled out and made to feel less worthy? Should she be treated poorly and with contempt? Absolutely fucking not. She’s a human. She’s a young female in a complex industry that doesn’t tend to treat women all that well. She has emotions and feelings and a heart and is a person. Education and kindness and explanations are the way to handle stuff like this not sarcasm and vitriol and chastising. I get that anger is a thing people who are marginalised feel because I have felt it myself, I understand that those in the Muslim community understand a level of marginalisation that nobody who is outside if that community can possibly understand and I would never try to speak for the anger they should and shouldn’t be allowed to feel but I’m talking about a fellow human and a show that advocates hope and kindness and comfort and acceptance. Treating her like shit isn’t ok, it isn’t what Skam is about and it isn’t nice on a very basic human level.

The season is going ahead. Besse has done a lot of research and committed himself to making this season happen. He has spoken about how much he loves and respects the season’s issues and has made it clear how much he fought for it to be a thing in the first place. This isn’t a show runner who doesn’t care but it doesn’t mean he can’t be criticised still.

My view is that this would be a wonderful chance for a young Muslim POC to play a role that represents her. To embody a character that other young POC Muslims (or even not POC because white Muslims do exist) can look up to, to be a role model, to represent her community. That can only ever be a truly special thing and Iman did a magical job as have other actresses playing Sana. I wish that the casting directors and show runner had insisted on this.

But I do not want to discount the immense good that a Sana season could do in modern day Italy. I don’t want to suggest that I understand the decisions behind the scenes. I don’t want to speak for white Muslims living in Italy. I don’t want to speak against Muslim Italians who have commented how much Sana’s season will mean to them in their political landscape.

I love Skam Italia. I think it’s a wonderful show. I cherish so much of it. No show is perfect. No remake of Skam is perfect. No actor or actress is an immediate social justice warrior with all of the complex sensitive knowledge at their finger tips to spout forth in a speech to end social issues. I care about people giving a shit and I care about kindness and this cast do as do many of the other Skam casts. This show is precious and useful and unique and it also is made and shown in countries with their own political, social, historic landscapes that people from outside those countries do not understand and that should always be remembered too.

This is not an easy topic and I think anyone who is POC and or Muslim has a right to express opinion and those opinions should be listened to but the way with all of this is with kindness not hatred. I don’t tolerate poor treatment of people. We live in a modern time where being wrong is apparently nowadays a cause of bloody abuse and that’s insanity. Debate is important as is talking to understand. Sometimes there is a place for anger and righteousness and yes I’d absolutely agree that it can be used in a valuable way and especially minorities have no requirement to educate or spend their time being kind to people who are racist or homophobic or prejudice in any way... but where there is misunderstanding or perhaps debate to be had and where stuff concerns well meaning people who maybe need to understand another viewpoint etc etc etc, I’d advocate for kindness and education over anything.

So these are my feelings on the issue. I will watch Sana’s season and I’ll be absolutely willing to be constructively critical, as always. I will also listen to those who are Muslim and Italian about how they feel about the season. I am also watching significantly for other characters too. I love a lot of the general s4 storyline and loved Sana a great deal. By me watching the season, it does not mean I am not critical of some of the decisions made. I choose, in the circumstances we are in, to give it a chance and to appreciate the good it can still do.

I don’t want to have a mass debate on this topic. There are people better places to have that debate and I’m not one of them. Please be kind and respectful and listen, that would be my advice ❤️

[inhale-fandoms-exhale-asdfghjkl]

Starkid Musicals Ranked

So I know I've done this before but it was quite a while ago and Black Friday has come out now so naturally I've had some changes in opinion. Also I've got nothing else better to do in self-isolation and I had plenty of time so i thought why the hell not. 

I’m sorry for the fact that this post drags on a bit. I just really love Starkid if that’s not already obvious. Please keep in mind I wrote this at 3am so if it’s riddled with spelling errors or doesn't make sense, please bear with me.

This time I wanted to be really thorough in how i ranked the shows so i went through a few processes. 

First I ranked each of the shows based on the writing, music, production, humour, costumes and the cast’s performances (which is really just criteria that makes a show great for me personally). For each category i gave them a score out of 10 which I then added up and each show what given a score out of 60. 

The results of this were:

Hmb (53/60)

AVPS, Starship, Twisted (52/60)

AVPM & Black Friday (47/60)

The Trail to Oregon (46/60)

TGWDLM (45/60)

AVPSY & ANI (44/60)

MAMD (37/60)

Firebringer (35/60)

To be honest, i was quite surprised by some of these scores. Some shows were way higher or lower than i though they’d be but some were pretty accurate. However, i didn’t think these scores alone really reflected my actual personal opinions of these shows as a whole. There were a few shows with the same scores so I tried to figure out a way to kind of rank them by personal taste while still using the scores. Really all I did was I ranked the ones with tied scores.

HMB

Twisted

Starship

AVPS

AVPM

Black Friday

The Trail to Oregon

TGWDLM

AVPSY

ANI

MAMD

Firebringer

Now I definitely thought this list was much more accurate but I still felt a few shows were out of place. In particular, HMB. A good portion of the reason of why it got such a high score is purely for my love of the costumes. Therefore, I pretty much abandoned all the previous work I did and then just listed them based on my personal enjoyment of each show which actually isn’t too different. Because at the end of the day, no matter how high I score a specific criteria for a show, that doesn’t necessarily mean I enjoy other aspects of the show equally.

For each show, I go into a pretty lengthy description of things I love about the show, commenting on the writing, music, production, humour, costumes and the cast’s performances. I also give provide an MVP for each show which is just a specific cast member or two’s performances that I particularly like to or stood out to me. I also give my favourite song and scene of each show. 

Also this is just MY personal ranking of each show based on things that I do or don’t enjoy about them. I absolutely love every single one of these shows, don’t confuse me being a little critical with some of them as hate or disrespect. Please understand that these are my opinions, which I am allowed to have just like you and I ask you to respect them even if you disagree just like I would respect yours. 

So without further ado, this is my final ranking of Starkid’s musicals:

1. Twisted

In my eyes, this show is quite possibly the closest thing you will ever get to perfection. Whether it’s the soundtrack (BLESS YOU AJ HOLMES AND YOUR RIDICULOUSLY AMAZING SONGWRITING SKILLS) or the acting (DAMN YOU DYLAN SAUNDERS FOR MAKING ME CRY SO MUCH, IT’S REALLY NOT FAIR) or just Nick and Matt’s writing which let’s be honest is always amazing. This show perfectly balances both the comedy and dramatic elements of the story, which if I’m being truly critical, not every Starkid show does. It’s a ridiculously beautiful, heart-warming show but it never takes itself too seriously. It has this amazing ability to have you both laughing and crying at the same time. Aladdin is one of my favourite Disney movies and I have to say it’s an amazing adaptation, it’s legitimately better than Disney’s live action remake in my opinion. Like all of their adaptation/parody shows, Starkid is able to stay true to the original text while also making it their own which I think is what make their shows so unique and refreshing.

MVP: I mean I gotta go with Dylan Saunders. I know it’s an obvious choice but how can I not. I mean I can’t believe it took them five years before they have Dylan a lead role because let’s be honest he’s amazing and he absolutely nailed this fucking role. Not only does he perfect every single one of those heart wrenching monologues/scenes but like his comedic timing is perfect. But Jeff, Joe and Rachael are definitely honourable mentions.

Favourite Song: IF I BELIEVED. If you don’t believe this is the best song on the soundtrack then you can bloody fight me, alright. I’m getting emotional just thinking about this song, just imagine when I listen to it or worse, when I watch the scene.

Favourite scene: I really love the entirety of Twisted with all the other Disney villains but literally any scene with Achmed is very fun to watch.

2. Starship

So I explained this in my original ranking post but I’m going to say it again. This show holds an extremely special place in my heart. It was the first Starkid show I watched after initially joining the fandom through AVPM and AVPS. I honestly couldn’t tell you what my favourite thing about this show is or why I love it so much, I just do. This show was my favourite show (until Twisted was released) and I would literally watch it over and over again. I love the music, I love the writing, and I love every single one of the cast’s performances. I legit have almost close to zero critiques on this show. It’s one of Starkid’s best written and produced productions (I mean the set, the puppets, everything was on point). This is such a hilarious show with some of Starkid’s best and most iconic jokes and yet it still manages to be such a beautiful and inspiring show.

With all this being said, this show is so criminally underrated and I really do not understand why but I guess everyone’s got their own tastes and all but okay. You do you.

Also, just gonna go off on a tangent for a bit. This musical is what made me fall in love with the beautiful, amazing, talented Dylan Saunders. I could not believe that the same man could play the adorable and very loveable cutie pie that is Tootsie Noodles/Mega-Girl and the hauntingly charismatic Pincer who is by the way one of Starkid’s best villains. Yes I said it. Nonetheless 12 –year-old me was absolutely flabbergasted by this man’s talented and really had no choice but to fall in love with him. Apart from Twisted, this is most definitely Dylan’s best performance (Not that he has any bad ones. Let’s be honest, that man is perfect). Legit, I challenge anyone to try watch this musical and not fall in love with him. It’s literally impossible.

MVP: I don’t think I could pick just one, I mean they’re all so amazing. I’d probably have to go with Joey. I think Bug was a great character for him and really showcased his abilities, which have just grown exponentially over the years. It was great seeing him play a more serious role rather than his previously more comedic roles (Ron and Joey) while also getting to goof off a little bit. It’s so fun to watch him in this and I really don’t think he gets enough appreciation for this role. Oh and also Meredith is amazing in Starship. I absolutely love her as Mega-Girl and it’s my favourite role of hers.

Favourite song: The Way I Do. Bro the chemistry between Meredith and Dylan is off the charts and this song just shows it. I love everything about this song. It’s so beautiful, I can’t even. Also not too be too like generic but Kick it up a Notch is phenomenal and one of Darren’s best. Actually this show’s whole soundtrack is probably my favourite of the ones that Darren wrote.

Favourite scene: I don’t think I have a favourite but I love the scene with Junior and Mega-Girl where he calls her a toaster and all that. Some of Brian’s best acting and he and Meredith’s chemistry really is really present here. It’s not often you get to see these two play opposite each other so it’s fun and interesting to watch.

3. A Very Potter Sequel

As a major Harry Potter fan, it’s only natural that I hold the Potter series with the highest regard. Despite the fact that this show is a parody by a bunch of college kids, it literally is a better adaptation than a whole eight-part, multi-million budget film series and that’s saying something. How the hell did Nick and Matt write every single one of these characters more accurately and consistently than professional screenwriters and at times, JK Rowling herself? It’s very rare that you ever hear me say that a sequel (I guess it’s technically a prequel) is better than the original but here we are. Don’t get me wrong, AVPM is iconic™ but this show just somehow improved what AVPM already perfected. The plot was much more fleshed out and every single character was written so perfectly and also everybody was casted perfectly. If you follow me you probably know of my love for Remus Lupin and while his character is AVPS is written absolutely ridiculously, it is one of my favourite things about the show. In this show Remus is written to be like this total mess of a person, who is like homeless and just walks around the school half naked, covered in blood and forces a child to eat a dead deer and is just drunk all time and yet I can just totally accept it. Like if the movies had written Remus like this I’d be like “hmm no” but when Brian Holden does it I’m like “um yes this is amazing”. This is quite possibly Starkid’s funniest show, I literally cry of laughter EVERY TIME. Honestly this show is comedic gold for any Harry Potter fan. From anything that comes of Lupin’s mouth or the entirety of Umbridge’s character to Lucius’s dancing.

This being said, I can totally understand why anyone wouldn’t like this or the other Potter shows as much as the others or not think it’s funny if they’re not a fan as most of the humour is based on knowledge of the original series and obviously this for the other parody shows like HMB or ANI. Nonetheless I still think anybody could enjoy this show and its humour as Starkid pretty much has the same sense of humour running throughout most if not all of their shows.

MVP: Brian Holden. I don’t think I need to explain again. But also Tyler Brunsman and Joe Walker are scene-stealers too. Also Corey Dorris as Yaxley in this show is peak comedy.

Favourite song and scene: okay so these kind of go together for me for this show. The whole scene with Those Voices brings me to tears every time. I fucking love the whole marauders era so them showing Sirius Black seeing James and Lily in the Mirror of Erised is more than my heart can take. Nick and Darren in this scene is just *chef’s kiss* and then you add Brian Rosenthal harmonising in the background, well it’s enough to make any girl break and you bet it does every time.

4. Holy Musical B@man!

Oh my god this is just such a fun show and if it was a person, I would die for it. When I first watched this, I wasn’t that big of a DC fan at the time so I couldn’t fully appreciate it for what it was. It’s actually so amazing and it’s a real shame that it sometimes gets overlooked. Nick Gage’s song writing is actually amazing and I really love this soundtrack. I mean I literally get chills every time I listen to the end of Dark, Sad, Lonely Knight. You know which part I’m talking about.

Also can we talk about the costumes for this show? June really fucking outdid herself with this show, they are literally the best costumes out of the whole Starkid canon and you cannot tell me otherwise. Not only did she nail like the classic comic book character costumes like Batman and Superman, etc. while also making them her own but she also created completely original and amazing costumes like Sweet Tooth and Candy. I wish I had even a small percentage of that talent and artistic ability. Anyway this show is so hilarious and also so emotional at the same time it’s not even fair. I’m not a big fan of Batman or Robin and yet this show almost has me changing my mind. And honestly, Nick Lang deserves the fucking world, I absolutely love watching him act and it’s unfortunate he doesn’t do it a lot because he’s amazing.

MVP: Joe Walker. Don’t get me wrong, I love watching Joe play all of his over-the-top comedic roles but I particularly love watching him play a slightly more serious role like this, it’s really refreshing and I really think he knocked it out of the park. Also Jeff Blim as Sweet Tooth is one of my favourite Starkid characters. No joke, 12-year-old me was OBSESSED.

Favourite song: either Dark, Sad, Lonely Knight or Rogues are We.

Favourite Scene:  the whole To Be a Man scene.

“Batman or should I say Butthead”

“Aaaaaaahhhhhhhh”.

If that’s not comedic gold I don’t know what is.

5. A Very Potter Musical

This show is and always will be Starkid’s most iconic show. I think it says a lot that a silly parody musical put on by a group of college students has been able to inspire a whole decade’s worth of beautiful, creative, crazy works of art which only continues to grow. This show was never meant to become what it did but how lucky and fortunate are we all that it did. I am so grateful that 8-9 (tbh I can’t even remember anymore) years ago I decided to watch a silly musical about Harry Potter because I cannot imagine my life without Starkid in it. No this show might not have the best set or props or costumes or sound/video quality (it was 2009 guys, give them a break) but it is absolutely amazing in every single way and that’s all I’m going to say.

MVP: fucking everyone. I mean I’m around the same age they were when they started all of this and I can’t even imagine being able to create something even remotely as creative and wonderful or having any kind of success as close to that any time soon.

Favourite song: I feel like I should go for a classic like Not Alone but I’m not gonna lie I’m a real sucker for Missing You.

Favourite scene: oh man I don’t know the whole show is so iconic. I don’t know how I can pick just one.

6. Black Friday

I’m sure some people would be surprised that this show would be so high on this list for a number of reasons. Mostly due to the fact that I’ve been known to be quite fond of, and pretty biased towards some of Starkid’s older shows. But I think that’s just because I’m really nostalgic for how the fandom was back 8 years ago when I joined. And also when I joined the fandom, HMB was like our TGWDLM. It was the newest show out and everyone was talking about it. And also this is the show I have been rewatching the most lately and vie literally had the album on repeat for the last month.

A lot of people don’t really like the new direction that Starkid has taken with this show and honestly I don’t get it. Yes, it’s considerably darker than their other shows and while they classify it as a horror-comedy, it doesn’t really have a whole lot of comedy. But in my opinion, I think that’s what makes the show so great. The main focus of this show is the characters – their pain, their desires, their struggles and I think any excess of comedy would just take away from what’s really important. I really love watching Starkid delve into this new kind of story-telling and I think they’re doing an amazing job with this Hatchetfield series. I think this show did such a great show of introducing us to all the new characters, developing their arcs and really establishing their role within the world of Hatchetfield while simultaneously blending them perfectly with the already established characters from TGWDLM. What I really like about this show and even TGWDLM is how the characters are written. They feel so real not as cartoonish as some of the characters in Starkid’s previous shows which are why the audience can really relate to these characters.

Also this editing and cinematography of this show is fucking amazing and unlike anything else we’ve gotten from Starkid over the years. The choreography is outstanding and the musical is phenomenal. This is easily Jeff Blim’s best work and I have a feeling some people might disagree with me on that. The music in this show is so beautifully intricate and the lyrics have so much depth and emotion which I just feel like TGWDLM lacks. I know some people have been a bit offstandish about the singing in this show and I guess I’d have to agree. The live vocals on the youtube version do seem a bit off but I just suspect some cast members may have been sick or maybe they were just having an off day (it happens guys, even to professionals). Also I love the additions of some new members to Starkids, everyone was absolutely great in this show. For some of these actors, the characters they played were completely opposite to roles that they’ve played in the past but they all nailed it – Joey, Jon, Lauren. My only complaint in terms of casting is that I wish they gave Jaime more, while she is often praised for her singing skills (rightfully so), she often gets overlooked in her acting abilities and it would be great to see her play a bigger role in the next show.

Also I get it, Santa Claus is going to High School is very hilarious and great but please don’t make it another Workin’ Boys thing. Don’t go demanding Starkid to make a short film for this too, let them focus on their other bigger and better projects, please.

MVP: this show had some of my favourite performances from many Starkids but if I had to say someone who particularly stood out to me it’s definitely Kim. Before Black Friday, I will admit I hadn’t really seen anything with Kim in it so this was a great surprise for me. I am literally in love with her voice; it’s one of the most beautiful things in this world.

Favourite song: Take Me Back. Dylan and Kim are just amazing in this song I can’t even explain how much I love it. I’m also a major fan of Feast or Famine and If I Fail You. Ooh and Made in America.

Favourite Scene: I really love the scene with Tom and Becky in the movie theatre but I also really love the whole What Do You Say scene, I think it’s hilarious. But I think my favourite is with the whole Black and White scene with the President, Wiggly and Wiley. One of Joey’s best performances in my opinion.

7. The Trail to Oregon

So on my last list, this show was considerably higher but, on my recent rewatch of the AVPM shows and HMB, I’ve realised how much I really love those shows and unfortunately TTO had to be downgraded. Don’t get me wrong, I still very much love this show. It’s one of the most fun shows to watch and has me smiling the whole time without fail. In saying this, this show also does an amazing job of adding in these beautiful emotional dramatic scenes that brings the audience to tears. At the end of the day, this show really is just about family and how important it is to love and appreciate them no matter how insane they are or how much they annoy you. I know Jeff is really beloved in the fandom but I still don’t think he gets enough appreciation for how good of a writer (both script and song writing) he is, as well as an actor. This show is so unexpectedly beautiful and I’m really grateful for Jeff creating this story.

I don’t really think this show gets enough credit for how good its production actually is considering it only has six cast members. This show is proof of how diverse, creative and talented all these actors really are. It’s such a different concept from their other shows and I think they executed it so well.

MVP: Joey absolutely smashed it, I’m sure it’s not easy having to play all these different characters and literally change between them in a matter of seconds while giving each of them their own separate, unique identities. Another performer I got to give credit to in this show is Rachael, When the World’s at Stake is an amazing performance and Corey is so funny to watch in this show. Grandpa is probably my favourite character as well as the son.

Favourite song: probably When the World’s at Stake but also Independence. I cannot possibly estimate how much time I spent trying to learn those lyrics and sing it at that speed and get it right but I finally got there.

Favourite scene: the whole scene when the Grandpa, Son and Daughter are hunting makes me laugh every time, it’s so funny. But there’s something about that scene with McDoon and Cletus that ends with them riding on the horse together that makes me crack up.

8. The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals

Okay so I know the last time I did this, TGWDLM was like no 5 or 6 but like it’s been like a year and a half and a lot of my opinions on this show have changed. I’m also aware that by the time the next Starkid show is out I’ll probably also have changed my mind about Black Friday but who knows. I am eternally grateful to this show for introducing me to the amazing Jon Matteson. In a matter of 2 hours, this man somehow became one of my favourite human beings in the world. His portrayal as Paul is just, I don’t even know but something about it just sticks with me and I absolutely love it. This concept of this show is actually so amazing and you really gotta give the Lang’s credit for being able to come up with stuff like this. A lot of the beauty of the show is that it seems like such a simple concept but if you really think about the implications, you can actually understand why it’s so terrifying. Production-wise, this show isn’t anything fancy in terms of set, costumes props, etc. But the lighting design is amaaaaaazinggggggg!

The soundtrack for this show is pretty great but if you’re comparing it to Starkid’s other scores, it’s not the best. I said it before; the music in this just lacks the depth and emotion that is so heavily prominent in the Black Friday score.

MVP: Jon Matteson for the reasons above. And also Joey’s monologue as Ted to Bill gives me chills every time.

Favourite song: I feel like as the show goes on the songs do tend to get more personal, detailed and emotional which I why I probably favour those over many of the songs in act one. Let it Out and Inevitable are two songs in particular that I love and definitely stand out to me.

Favourite scene: the whole Let it Out scene with Jon trying to resist the apotheosis. And also Lauren’s acting at the end of Inevitable is amazing. Her running around the stage, distressed is both so horrifying but also absolutely hilarious.

9. Me and My Dick

I mean I guess I understand why a lot of people don’t like this show but that doesn’t mean I can forgive the fact that it’s so underrated. Yeah the humour is a bit crude and I get that’s not everyone’s thing but literally this show is two and a half hours of pure golden comedy. Honestly, who thought a show about high school kids and their walking and talking genitalia could be one of the most wholesome and heart-warming things in the world. I don’t think anyone other than Starkid could pull of something like this which honestly says so much about them. These people come up with some of the most craziest, outrageous stuff and somehow turn them into beautiful, amazing works of art.

The soundtrack for this show is so freaking good man. And AJ Holmes is literally one of the most amazing and talented people on this earth. How the fuck does he write such good music? I need to know, it’s really not fair. And for all those people who complain that it took Corey Dorris ten years to get a solo, I urge you to simply watch MAMD.

This show doesn’t have the best production and the sound quality is not great but you know what? Fuck you. Because the acting is this show outshines all of that. The energy each of the performers has in this show is crazy and they are all extremely talented. Literally AJ as Joey’s heart is next fucking level. And Arielle is criminally underrated for her role in this. And Nick Strauss is a comedy king. I’ve said it before and will say it again; The Old Snatch and Flopsy are the most iconic duo.

MVP: AJ and Nick. Like I said. Next level and iconic™.

Favourite song: Listen to your heart. But also Even Though. And Finale is a certified bop.

Favourite scene: I love the scene with Dick and Flopsy but I don’t know if it’s my favourite. But one of my favourite quotes is when Dick is talking to Joey about Miss Cooter’s hair and Joey’s delivery of “on her vagina?” cracks me up every time. And honestly there’s not a lot that can beat Brian during Gotta Find His Dick just intensely repeating “Someone tell him where his dick is”. It makes me laugh so hard I really don’t know why.

10. A Very Potter Senior Year

Alright so let me take you back to 2012. I remember the day they posted the video announcing they were not only making another Harry Potter show but that they were bringing back almost every Starkid member. It was actually such a weird time for the fandom because it really did seem like this show was going to be the end of Starkid. When you watch the show, you can see that the actors are not only saying goodbye to Harry Potter and the characters that they had been playing for the last 3 years but also they were saying goodbye to each other. It was heartbreaking to watch then and it still is now 8 years later. 2012 me was absolutely devastated because I had only just discovered this fandom and I thought I would already have to say goodbye to something that become so special to me in such a short amount of time. Luckily for us all this was not the end of Starkid.

This show really holds a special place in my heart, for so many reasons. First off, it was the first Starkid show that I got to watch as it premiered. Second, I was still grieving the end of the Harry Potter movies and these musicals had kind of replaced that for me but then this was ending too. And third, it really just is the most perfectly executed ending to the AVP series.

This show makes me both laugh and then cry and then laugh again and then cry and laugh at the same time. In my opinion, it is one of the best written Starkid shows, on par with the other Potter shows and I think the only reason why it gets overlooked is the fact that it’s a stage reading rather than a proper production. But you know what, considering this show was literally put together in such a short amount of time and the actors literally had a few days’ worth of preparation, they still managed to put on an amazing show. I wholeheartedly believe that if this show had been a proper production, it would be pretty fucking perfect. The soundtrack for this show is probably the best out of all the Potter shows for me. Every one of these songs is a bop and I love them all so much.

Long story short, people need to stop sleeping on AVPSY and appreciate it more.

MVP: Joey Richter. I don’t even need to explain. Just watch Act 2 Part 11. Actually him in the entirety of Act 2. And also that delivery of “losers like us that’s who” just makes me cry every time. How did Starkid portray Ron more accurately in these musicals that WB did?

Favourite song: it’s a tie between I Was and I’m Just a Sidekick.

Favourite scene: The whole scene with the resurrection stone and Everything Ends. Absolute Perfection.

11. ANI

Like the Harry Potter shows, I can understand why people don’t like this show. If youre not a fan of the original text, you probably won’t like the comedy or understand the entire plot or whatever. And honestly that’s the only reason I put this show so low. I have very very little knowledge of Star Wars so pretty much all of the jokes and that go right over my head. However, I still find it very enjoyable to watch and most of that probably has to be credited towards the fact that it has a killer soundtrack and a pretty perfect cast. Also like I said with HMB, I love the rare occasion that we get to see Nick perform. This soundtrack, oh my god, it’s so amazing. Why do people keep overlooking it? I get that it’s different because it’s not the character’s singing it but like that choreography though. Clark Baxtresser has one of the most beautiful voices so you’ll never hear me complaining about a whole score of pretty much just his voice. But that’s just me. I hate how much hate I see for this show. Everyone worked extremely hard on this show, particularly Nick and Matt who wrote the whole thing and the lack of appreciation for it is horrible to see. It’s actually such a fun show, and you can tell the cast had so much fun doing this show because their energy is so great in this.

MVP: Nick Lang. Again, he deserves the world. And Chris Allen is incredible in every role he does but particularly this.

Favourite song: With My Own Eyes and Long Ago and Far Away. I just really love the vocals.

Favourite scene: Nick’s scene as Obi-Wan.

12. Firebringer

CoNtRaVeRsIaL oPiNiOn  but sorry but I don’t like Firebringer. It’s not that I hate it. I’m just not really fan of it or its comedy – mostly because I don’t think it has any. I’ve seen people say that Twisted or MAMD rely too much on using swearing/ profanities for humour but honestly I think that’s more of the case for this show. That’s not to say that there’s not things I don’t like about it. Apart from HMB, this show probably has some of the best costumes. I can’t really fault Nick and Matt’s writing too much but I have to say this is some of their weakest work. I don’t think the plot as a whole is bad I just think there’s parts that don’t work for me or just don’t feel right. And I’m not really a fan of the characters and their development. I never thought I’d ever be able to say that I dislike any role of Meredith’s but honestly I find her character really unlikeable and I know people might attack me for that but it’s just my opinion. I like Zazzalil, I think Lauren did a great job, as always but I don’t know I just don’t think there’s any particular character or performance that really stands out for me in this show. If I’m being completely honest, I have only been able to watch the full run of this show twice, maybe three times and it has been a while since the last time I watched it but if I’m being honest I don’t see myself sitting down to watch it again any time soon. One thing I can definitely praise this show on is the female and LGBTQ+ representation, although that should go unsaid but even in 2020, seeing positive representations of female, LGBTQ+ or POC in media is still somehow refreshing and surprising and ain’t that just a little bit sad?. Another thing I can praise this show on is the music, I actually quite enjoy majority of the soundtrack.

MVP: Both of the Lauren’s. Lauren Lopez because she’s amazing in everything but especially in this, I’m so happy she finally got a lead role, she deserved it 100%. And Lauren Walker is just fucking hilarious. Why hasn’t she been in another Starkid show since?

Favourite song: probs climate change

Favourite scene: like I said, there’s really not a lot that stands out to me in this show so I really don’t know what to pick.

[theyrejustbehindtheveil]

Now presenting my @mlsecretsanta gift for @phantompierce-okamoto. Merry Chrysler :)

Ao3

///////////////

“Look, all I’m saying is, if you put Ladybug and Chat Noir together, then all the black cancels out and you get Christmas colours.”

“For the last fucking time, Als, we are not tinsel bombing the heros of Paris.”

Chloé crosses her arms and lean forward “Yeah. Ladybug deserves better, Cesaire, and you know it.”

Nino frowns. “How would you even make that happen?”

“Ambush?” Alya says, slightly too eagerly in Marinette’s opinion.

“How about we don’t”

“But Mariiiii” Alya whines.

“Alya, you know she wouldn’t like it.”

“Yeah but Chat Noir would probably be down. Cats love chasing sparkly stuff.”

“Chat Noir would absolutely be down.” Adrien interjects.

“What makes you so sure, Adrien? Huh? What if he’s allergic to tinsel, same as he is with feathers.”

“He is not!”

“How do you even know that, Dupain-Cheng?”

“Um. The Ladyblog?”

...

“Okay but what if it was a tinsel akuma.”

“Alya!”

“Yeah but, Alya, how would you even make that happen?”

“Do not doubt my skills, Nino, for I am Ladyblogger and journalist extraordinaire!”

“And that gives you the power to influence akumas?”

“No but I’m very persuasive. And I know Chloé!”

“Hey!”

Marinette really honestly thought that would be the end of it. Just the stress of the end of the year sending them all a little loopy and ridiculous. And yet, once Chloé and Alya get an idea properly lodged in their heads, it’s nearly impossible to talk them out of it. And so, Marinette, and therefore by extension Ladybug, finds herself at the beginning of December, in the midst of the end of term assignments and homework and the upswing in customers at the bakery, also having to evade her friends and their plans, and the armloads of tinsel that were Chloé’s main contribution to this exercise.

“Guys, I really don’t think she’s coming.”

“C'mon Mari, don’t be so worried. This is totally gonna work. She always comes by this time on a Monday”

“How do you even know that, Alya?”

“My skills are many and varied and also Ladybug is bright red and we’re near my house. I can see her out my bedroom window.”

Ah. Whoops.

Minutes pass. Nino starts fidgeting, not used to staying still for so long. Marinette wishes she’d thought to bring her sketchpad or something as she fixates on the hatching of the brickwork across from her and the way the shadows fall across Alya’s hair.

“Alya, babe, I don’t think she’s coming.” Alya’s grip tightens on the bundle of tinsel in her hands

“Shhh Nino. She’s coming, I know it.”

Marinette wishes she could sneak away and draw them away, but her only escape route is blocked by Alya and Nino who are now… staring each other down. Marinette looks away. She recognises that intense staredown as one of the things that has a tendency to lead to the two of them making out against lockers. And walls. And on one memorable occasion, a rooftop.

Behind her, the plaster between the bricks has partially eroded away. She looks up. A few meters up, there’s a wrought iron balconette. And then further over, a ledge that trails around the corner of the building. Maybe, if she used the wooden crates stacked nearby to give her a boost…

…

“ Wait, where’d Marinette go?”

//////////////

Ladybug grins as she fistbumps Chat Noir. The akuma they just dealt with was an easy one, and they’re wrapping up almost as soon as they’d really gotten underway. The only complication in the fight had been also having to avoid Alya and Chloé stalking her and Chat with armfuls of tinsel. Luckily they’d been talking about it in the group chat, otherwise she’d have been caught out like Chat was.

He’s still got bits of tinsel in his hair.

Out of the corner of her eye, she spots Alya sneaking closer, a truly terrifying grin on her face. At the same time, a sharp beeping starts up from her earrings.

“Aw hell. Chat?”

“Mrrp?”

“I gotta bug out. You good to go?” Alya’s getting closer, and Ladybug shifts her weight, ready to swing out.

He draws out his baton. “Yeah! See you next akuma.”

“Bye Chat!” She calls as she swings out, and giggles at the cry of frustration she can hear from Alya in her wake.

...

On the bright side, Alya does show her the photos she got of Chat being tinsel-bombed. Her favourite is the selfie Alya managed to get of Chat, Chloé, and her all draped in sparkly tinsel.

“Send me that one?”

“Sure girl. But no sharing. I want to wait until I have one of Ladybug too, so I can post them together, and i don’t want to spoil the surprise.”

“No spoilers, I promise.”

////////////////

Once again, Marinette finds herself trying desperately to dissuade her friends not to tinsel-bomb the superheroes of Paris, in what appears to be a losing battle for her dignity.

“All I’m saying is, you’re running out of time and she seems to have evaded you pretty easily so far.”

Alya goes from lying on the floor to bolt upright so fast that Marinette can hear her spine make an audible crack . “But Mari! We can’t just give up !”

Adrien looks up from the tangle of limbs he has wound himself into. “What if we asked her nicely?”

Nino twists to look at the tangle of boy behind him. “Adrien, buddy, she’ll never go for it”

“Okay so what if we asked Chat Noir to ask her nicely. I know - I mean, I reckon he would totally go for it.”

“But Adrien! The surprise! The mystery! She cant be ready for it! It has to be a surprise!”

Chloé chuckles from where she’s dangling upside down off the side of Marinette’s bed. “Chill, Cesaire. We got Chat, we can so get Ladybug too.”

Alya hops up to go get the whiteboard that Marinette has leaning against the wall by her desk so that she can drag it over to where everyone can see it.

“Okay so what we gotta do is this…

It is two days before Christmas, and Marinette is busier than a whole beehive trying to get everything done. Thankfully she’s finally started the school holidays, and has a bit more time in the day, but still. Between making and wrapping presents and helping her parents finish all the Christmas orders, she barely has time to keep up with Alya’s tinsel-bombing plans and shenanigans.

Ladybug’s had some pretty close calls, although thankfully no tinsel-themed akuma, much to Alya’s profuse disappointment. On one memorable occasion, she had to hide behind a parked car, detransform, and pop out on the other side ready to help Nino and Chloé look for the suddenly and mysteriously missing Ladybug.

///////////////

As of right now, she’s had a phone that’s been going off all day, indubitably Alya fretting about it being so close to Christmas without the photos that she wants, and trying to corral everyone into another strategy meeting. Marinette isn’t sure though, since she quite frankly doesn’t have the time to check her phone.

The sun is lying low on the horizon when she hears the akuma alert go off on her phone, a jaunty little jingle Alya programmed into all their phones one day while bored. Minutes later, Ladybug makes an appearance on the scene of the akuma, only to find Chat Noir grinning as he plays keep away with an akuma that looks like a really small and misshapen Christmas tree. He waves at her as soon as she lands.

“Hawkmoth is really running out of ideas if this is the best he can do,” Chat says cheerily to her as she takes in the scene.

“Yeah, at least we’re not gonna get killed by a Christmas tree,” she returns. “ You’re doing great Chat, but let’s get this wrapped up, I have like three places I’m supposed to be right now.

Her partner laughs, but then has to duck out of the way of the akuma intent on getting whatever the token Chat has back. She thinks it might be some kind of bauble, but she can't quite see.

The next few minutes mostly have Chat trying to get clear enough of the akuma that he can break the token.

“Just one more minute, my lady, I’m almost clear,” he shouts, incredibly loudly, before immediately throwing the token full force at the ground. It shatters, and she springs into action, yoyo snapping out at the little butterfly that escapes. Moments later she turns, expecting to see her partner ready for their usual fistbump, but instead her vision is filled with a mess of sparkly, colourful -

oh no

Her friends laughter fills her ears as she vanishes under armfuls of tinsel. Marinette takes a moment to mourn the last shreds of her dignity before letting a small smile escape onto her lips.

Merry Christmas indeed.

THE END

////////////////////

EPILOGUE

On Christmas morning, the Ladyblog posts a photoset that goes viral within the hour. It shows two side by side photos, one of Chat Noir and the other of Ladybug, both sporting nearly identical expressions of shock and both covered in tinsel. The third is a selfie, showing both heroes, still draped in tinsel, posing with three teenagers in santa hats. The internet identifies the girl who runs the Ladyblog and the daughter of the mayor of Paris, but they have trouble working out who the boy with the headphones is.

The caption reads: “MERRY CHRISTMAS LADYBUG AND CHAT NOIR FANS!!!!

BONUS VIDEO COMING TO THE LADYVLOG IN THE NEW YEAR!!!!”

Suffice to say, the comment section goes nuts, and the site crashes several times that day, to Alya’s deep satisfaction. A very merry Christmas is had by her.

[spaceskam]

3 Davenzi ; ik Davenzi angst is hard but like pls

okay i got extremely carried away. i apologize in advanced. anyway heres a ridiculously long davenzi flower shop auwarning: mentions of self-harm/suicidal ideation (which is really odd to say after i just said it was a flower shop au but here we are)

“Hi, welcome to Schreiber’s Flowers.”

David didn’t look up from his sketchbook even as he greeted whoever had walked through the door and made the bell ring throughout the small shop.  It had been a slow day and, with 30 minutes left, he was ready to go ahead and close up shop.  However, Laura would yell at him for the rest of his life if he closed early.  What was the point of owning your own store if you can’t close whenever the hell you want?

“Mom’s like flowers, right?” The voice startled David and he looked up to see a boy standing quite close despite being on the other side of the counter.  His bangs hung in front of his eyes as he leaned his elbows on the glass countertop, the tip of his tongue peeking out from his lips as he traced his teeth.

David thought of every slow-motion, heart-stopping, head-spinning scene in every romance movie or show or novel and how he’d always assumed they were stupid.  And, honestly, they were stupid.  Incredibly stupid.  But suddenly this guy was in front of him and his body temperature rose and he almost forgot he had a job to do.   

“Um, yeah, I’d say so,” David responded after an embarrassingly long time.  The guy flashed a lopsided grin, sinking further onto the counter until he was gazing up at David through his hair.  He was easily the cutest guy he’d seen all week.  When he smiled, he definitely might be the cutest all year.  Bless whoever sent him his way.

“It’s your job to say so.”

“Maybe,” David mused, crossing his arms as he leaned forward and gave the guy a little smirk.  He smiled wider.

“I missed her call last week and didn’t call her back and she’s still mad at me.  Got any special flowers for that occasion?” he asked.  David bit down on his lip as he scanned his face, pretending like he actually thought about it.

“Depends on how much you wanna spend.”

“Not much.”

David smiled, “Okay.”

They spent the next twenty or so minutes walking around the shop, talking aimlessly about flowers.  David was more than a little sure that the guy had no idea what he was talking about, but he nodded like he got it.   He smiled sweetly and offered up comments that might pass for witty if David wanted to stretch enough to give him credit.  He did.

The guy ended up settling on three yellow Asiatic lilies without much extra filler in an attempt to keep the price down.  They still looked pretty and, after David wrapped them up, they were big enough to give the illusion that it might’ve been more expensive than they actually were.  David leaned his elbows on the countertop and the guy mimicked.  His heart thudded harder in his chest when he realized that the flowers were the main thing separating their arms from touching.

“You wanna write a note?” David asked.  The guy grinned, nodding his head and his hair covering more of his face.  David found it hard to take his eyes off of him when he dug beneath the register for a slip of paper and a pen.  He slid it over to him, his stomach tightening when their knuckles grazed.

The guy sat there for a moment, leaning over it and not writing a damn thing before looking up at David with those painfully blue eyes, “What do I write?”  David laughed.

“Something simple.  Maybe a ‘please don’t disown me’ might work,” David suggested, the guy before him snorting.  He really needed to get his name.  Or his number.  Both, preferably.

“You, sir, are a genius,” he said, pointing the pen at him before crouching back over the paper.  Something in David’s chest bloomed, heat making its way through his veins and lighting every inch of him on fire.  What the fuck was this.  The guy’s eyes peeked up through his hair again, “You wouldn’t happen to have good handwriting, would you?”

David rolled his eyes as he took the pen from the guy’s hand, “You know, I should just say from it’s from the both of us since I’m doing all the work here.”

“Maybe so. What’s your name?” The guy’s tongue pressed to the back of his teeth and David felt lightheaded.

“David,” he answered, pausing to let his eyes skim over him once again, “and you?”

The guy pushed up on his toes, leaning closer, “Matteo.”

Matteo, Matteo, Matteo, Matteo, Matteo, Matteo.  The name danced around his mind like it was playing a game, teasing him with the idea that he’d see him after he left the shop. David barely left the flower shop as it was and he lived above it so it wasn’t even like he had the excuse of walking home to seek him out.  Instead, he had to wonder if he really should just ask for his number or if he should just let him walk away.

“Here you go,” David said as he tucked the note into the flowers.  He had to let him walk away.  That was his only real option.

David rung him up and tried to avoid staring at him anymore.  That made it a fuckton harder to let him leave without asking to see him again.  However, he knew that’s the way it had to be.  David didn’t have much to offer.  He lived with his sister, worked in his sister’s shop, was too scared to leave the house.  He wasn’t inherently social or charming or anything special.  He was virtually a hermit.

Matteo, on the other hand, had a smile to light the world and was charming and he carried himself with a confident swagger that screamed ‘I don’t give a fuck what you think about me’.  He had books protruding out of his unzipped back that he’d dropped before the front desk, one of which being a biology textbook which meant he was in college and had dreams about life.  His phone had buzzed multiple times since he’d walked in, saying he had friends and probably went out.  Hell, he’d even been the one to ask for David’s name.  He probably wanted someone just as outgoing.

He probably wasn’t even into guys.

“Thanks,” Matteo said as he eventually started heading towards the door, though he walked backward and basically forced David to hold his gaze with some sort of authority he couldn’t say no to, “David.”

Matteo stepped out of the flower shop with a grin, spinning around to the soft ding of the bell.  David collapsed into his chair, his head thrown back as his body turned to mush.  What gave him the right to say his name like that?  It made his head spin.  He’d heard the name David come out of a million different people, his own included, and yet none of them sounded so perfect.  None of them had sounded like it was specially crafted to fit into someone mouth like it did with Matteo.

“David, are you okay down there?  We do close at 5, you know!” Laura suddenly called from the stairway that led to their apartment, shaking him from his Matteo-induced daze.  He glanced over at the clock, the big hand and the little hand forming an unmistakable 5:30.

Whoops.

*

David thought he’d died and gone to heaven when Matteo walked in the next day.

Caught off guard and more than a little flustered, David just barely croaked out a, “hey.”  Matteo licked his lips and grinned as he walked confidently up to the counter again, leaning against it on his elbows.

“Hey yourself.”

David couldn’t think of what to say or do.  He’d thought about this stupid guy since the moment he saw him the day prior.  He could barely hold a conversation at dinner with Matteo on the brain and he couldn’t even think about the dreams he’d had without blushing.  He had tried to push the thought of him away when he’d woken up, but it had only started to work whenever he got back from his lunch break.

That didn’t last long.

Matteo’s tongue prodded the inside of his cheek before swiping across his bottom lip, disappearing behind a large lopsided smile and a huffed laugh.  Cue the dizziness.

“So, my mom really liked those flowers. Thanks,” he said. David blinked.  “Any chance you know anything about the language of flowers?”

“Uh,” he paused, desperately trying to clear his head enough to have a conversation.  He could feel his cheeks getting redder and redder by the minute and he wanted to burst of embarrassment.  Matteo only seemed to smile through it.  “A little.”

Matteo sunk down, his chin resting on his hands that pressed flat against the counter.  He gazed up through his hair and David’s fingers twitched, desperate to push his bangs aside to get a real view of those eyes.  He didn’t, obviously, deciding to just stare at them and only them, definitely not Matteo’s slightly pursed lips that were too perfect to be real.

“Teach me?”

Fuck.

*

Every day for the next two weeks, Matteo would turn up around thirty minutes before closing and would stay a little later each day.  David was getting a little addicted to his company, spending every moment without him giddy for when he’d turn up next.  He couldn’t actually remember the last time he’d had a friend, much less a friend that looked like that, and he was loving every minute of it.

While they had definitely drifted to talking about everything under the sun, they’d gone back to the topic of the language of flowers every once in a while. Matteo thought it was spectacularly funny that they had a whole section of flowers dedicated for rejection and David had done more research than he’d done in his life specifically to tell him more, to get him to laugh more.  Aside from that, he’d seemed especially fascinated with the flowers that stood for love, unspoken love, absolute affection, devotion. He said it was sweet that they managed to say so much with so little. David had told him his favorite was the red tulip.

“It’s basically like saying, ‘believe me when I say I love’. It could be for any occasion. Like, if someone was going away forever, they could send that as a final sacrament of their love,” David had explained as they sat on the floor of the flower shop, the doors locked for the night and their backs against the front desk.  Their shoulders were touching and it had David soaring.

“That’s really dramatic,” Matteo had teased, “I think you should be able to say that without a big ending. You should make sure the person you love knows that you love them every day of the week.”  David remembered turning to face him and discovering their faces were just a few inches apart.  Of all the times he’d thought about kissing him, that was the time he regretted the most that he didn’t.  Next time I see him, he promised himself.

That was four days ago.

“Your little friend coming today?” Laura asked teasingly as David got ready for work, taking extra time to make sure his hair looked presentable.  Matteo never really went out of his way to look put together, but he pulled off the sloppy look better than anyone in the whole world so David didn’t expect him to change that.  But that didn’t mean he was going to try to do the same.

“Stop,” David groaned, but he couldn’t hide the smile on his face.  He’d worked up the courage since he left the night before after spending nearly three hours laying the floor together and talk about anything and everything.  Matteo had even opened up to him about his father leaving him and his mother a few years back without much of a warning, fucking off to Italy and only talking when Matteo called him first.  David felt bad for him, but he felt special that he got to know something so personal.  

That personal admission had prompted David to share something personal of his own‒his sketchbook.  Matteo had flipped through it for an hour, trying his best to give artistic comments.  He mainly stuck with waxing poetic on how talented he was.

Sometime during that, Matteo’s hand had grazed his own.  It had made his whole body tense, head to toe, and he’d stared at him like he was choking him.  In a way, he sort of was because he decided not to move his hand away.  It was almost like it was intentional.

“When are you going to ask him out?” Laura asked, ignoring his pleas for her to drop it.  The moment she’d discovered the reason he was staying late was because of a guy, she wouldn’t stop teasing him.  David guessed it was his fault for being completely isolated for two years, but that didn’t make it any less annoying.

“I’m not.”

“David!  He really likes you!” Laura said and David snorted in disbelief.  Where the hell did she get that from?  “Oh, so you’re telling me this guy goes out of his way to come spend hours of time with you every single day, but he doesn’t like you?”

“I don’t think he’s into guys.”

“David,” she said, coming up behind him in the mirror and resting her chin on his shoulder, “To me, it sounds like he’s more than into you.  He’s probably thinking you aren’t into him.  He’s been reaching out for two weeks.  Reach out to him.  Don’t let what your brain is saying keep you from him. You’re allowed to have someone and be loved, no matter what happened to you in the past.”

David mulled over her words as she smiled, patting him on the back and heading down to open up shop.  He stared at himself in the mirror, wondering if maybe she was right.  Maybe Matteo was just waiting for him to make a move.  Maybe the hand touching, the handful of close-enough-to-be-kisses, and the constant hanging out was him saying he was interested.  David had a hard fucking time understanding why someone like Matteo would be even kind of interested in him, but… maybe it was worth figuring out.  And maybe, just maybe, if he wasn’t into him like that, he’d still come out of it with a friend.

So, today, for the first time in years, he was going to put himself on the line.  For Matteo.

But then he didn’t show.

David stared at the door until well after they closed up, each minute that passed crushing his hopes a little more.  That was it, it had to be a sign.  The day that he was going to grow a pair and ask Matteo out, he didn’t show.  He’d probably gotten tired of him, tired of talking to someone who didn’t have any stories outside of high school and the TV shows he watched. He bored him to death until he didn’t want to see him anymore.  Go fucking figure.

That night, David didn’t sleep much.  He was too busy trying to figure out if he’d done something wrong the night before or if he really was that boring.  For hours, he ridiculed himself for waiting too long, for wasting time and ruining his chances.  A guy like Matteo wasn’t just going to wait around forever, especially when David didn’t even fucking leave the house.  He was pathetic.

The next morning, David didn’t bother making himself look nice.  He let his hair look hardly tame and decided to just wear his sweats.  It’s not like anyone would see it.  Not anyone important that is.

David trudged down the steps and opened up shop with the same level of gravitas.  It wasn’t until he unlocked the door and flipped around the sign that he noticed a note taped to the glass.  He blinked in confusion a few times before deciding to grab it off the door.  When he looked at it, he nearly stopped breathing.

Things came up, I promise to explain xx

Beneath the messy handwriting was a sloppily drawn flower, the petals colored in haphazardly with a red pen.  Beside it read ‘tulip’ with an arrow pointing towards it.  A red tulip.

David ran right back upstairs to fix his hair.

*

“So your mom’s going to be okay and everything, right?”

David watched as Matteo gave a tired smile and nodded.  Apparently, something had gone wrong and his mother had ended up in the hospital.  He said he managed to slip away for a bit around 3 in the morning which is when he’d left the note.  Currently, he was just supposed to go home to take a shower before heading back, but he wanted to stop by to say he didn’t mean to leave him hanging.  David’s hopes were higher than ever.

“Uh, yeah, yeah.  They’re keeping her for observation,” Matteo said.  His voice was soft and he was mostly avoiding eye contact.  As special as David felt, he also hated to keep him away.  He didn’t know exactly what was going on with his mom, but he wasn’t about to be the reason he wasn’t with her.

“Well, don’t let me keep you,” David insisted.  He wanted to ask him out and he definitely planned to do so, but now was a bad time.  Actually, now was the worst time.  So he decided against it.

“You’re fine, seriously, I wanna be here.  I can waste a few minutes if they’re for you,” Matteo said and as tired as he looked, he still came off ungodly charming.  That familiar feeling that came with Matteo’s presence burst into his chest without much warning.  David smiled, hoping his face wasn’t as red as it felt.  “I really like talking to you.”

David smiled softly, “Me too.”

“Do you think… do you think I could get your number?” Matteo asked.  It was the shyest he’d ever seen him in all the time he’d known him.  He almost always had this air of confidence around him even when he said the dumbest shit in the world, but not today.  Maybe he was tired or stressed, or maybe David actually had the power to make someone nervous.

It seemed unlikely.

“Y-yeah, absolutely!” he answered almost immediately and proceeded to mentally kick himself for sounding way too eager.  Matteo’s smile subdued the embarrassment.

Matteo didn’t stay much longer, but he texted him the minute he walked out.  David was satisfied.

*

Matteo: Do you want to come over tonight?

David stared at the phone for so long he was wondering if he should even reply.  Granted, the message had been sent sometime between David going to sleep and waking up, but he still had seen it for a long time.  Matteo probably thought he was ignoring him.

The two of them had been texting on and off for over a week every minute they weren’t together. He couldn’t leave his phone alone when it lit up with his name and he stayed up ridiculously late every night for him.  A few nights, they’d called and talked until they both fell asleep on the phone.  David felt like a teenager all over again and he was crushing like one.  He didn’t want to admit how many doodles he had of Matteo in his sketchbook and even on the pages that weren’t of him, his name was written in the corners covered in hearts.

The only problem is that he had no idea how Matteo was feeling and he didn’t know how to take the proposition of going to his house.

“Laura,” David said as he stepped into the flower shop, “I need help.”

He hated asking her any of her opinions on the Matteo situation, but he was feeling desperate and he didn’t know anyone else.  So he placed his phone in front of her and waited for her to tell him what to do.

“Oh my god!  Say yes!” Laura pressured, “You finally have a good excuse to go somewhere!”

“But what does it mean?”

“Does it matter?”

Okay, valid point.

“But what if… What if he wants to, like, hook up?  What do I say?  He’s gonna notice that‒” David tried, subconsciously pulling his sleeves over the heels of his hands.  Laura grabbed his hands gently, looking into his eyes.

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, but if he does and you do, then just tell him.  There’s no harm done, not if he really likes you,” she promised.  David took a deep breath as he tried to accept what she was saying.

There was a chance that Matteo really liked him.  He was so tired of not taking risks. Matteo was the one to take.  

David: sure what time?

*

“It’s not much, but…”

David let his eyes look around the small apartment, his fingers tapping against his leg anxiously.  It exuded Matteo.  It was vaguely cluttered, not messy, just lived in.  It was homey and welcoming and it helped subdue his nerves. Well, helped a little.  It was the first time he’d gone anywhere aside from the little grocery store next to the flower shop in over a year and it had to be where he was alone with a boy.  That was the most stressful shit ever.

Nonetheless, he powered through and Matteo led him to his room.  A few words were shared here and there before Matteo eventually just handed him a Switch controller and gave him something far less stressful to focus on.  Turns out, hanging out with a friend can be fun.

“So, where’s your mom?” David asked after a few hours of going back and forth winning games of Mario Kart.  Matteo licked his lips, his eyes on the floor.  It took less than a few seconds for David to realize he fucked up and that he really should’ve noticed that Matteo had been smiling a lot less frequently in the last week.  “Sorry, I shouldn’t‒”

“She’s in the hospital,” Matteo answered simply, reaching over to put his controller on the desk in the corner.  David chewed on his bottom lip, too scared to say anything.  He’d come to hang out and be enjoyable and he fucked it up by upsetting him.  He was already upset and David had barely even noticed, too wrapped up in his stupid little crush and his own issues.  How was he supposed to have a crush on someone when he couldn’t even pay enough attention to their feelings?  “A psychiatric hospital.”

David nodded slowly, not knowing what to say that wouldn’t make it worse.  He didn’t want to ask questions, he didn’t want to put himself where he didn’t belong.  He just wanted to be there for Matteo.

“She was in and out of there my whole fucking childhood.  I thought she was good now though, you know?  Like, she hasn’t been bad since my dad left and, and I make sure she takes her medicine and goes to therapy.  But I-I left her alone for too long, I think, and before I knew it, I was getting a call saying she’d fucking cut her wrists open. I should’ve been watching her,” Matteo said, his voice slowly becoming thick with tears.  David felt sick.  He was the reason Matteo hadn’t been home as much.  He was the reason he felt so guilty.  It being over something like this made him feel even worse.

David put his hand on his knee.

“It’s not your fault.  Those things… they just happen. It’s no one’s fault. It’s not hers, it’s not yours. Sometimes things just get bad and all you can think is that… it needs to stop,” David said softly.  He knew the feeling too well, too personally.  He had spent so long pushing them away, but he knew even the slightest worrying change could make it all come back.  He wondered if Matteo’s mom felt the same way.

“I know.  Really, logically, I know, but… can’t help but feel like I pushed it somehow,” Matteo whispered, sniffling.  David took a chance and moved his arm to wrap around his shoulders.  In a second, Matteo’s head hit his shoulder.

“I wish I could make you feel better.”

They fell silent, Matteo’s hand reaching out to David’s spare one.  His heart thudded in his chest for more than one reason as Matteo played with his hand, his sleeve riding up just enough to cause panic.  However, he managed to stay calm for Matteo because he needed it and let him trace over his fingers and his palms as rogue tears slipped into the fabric of his sweater.

“You wanna make me feel better?” Matteo asked after a while.  David let the sentence hang in the air for a moment, slightly scared of what was going to come next.  Eventually, he decided it was worth it.

“I’d do anything.”

Before he could even close his mouth all the way after speaking, Matteo’s lips were on his own.  David squeaked a noise of surprise, his hands shooting up as Matteo continued to kiss him.  So much of him wanted to kiss back, to enjoy this moment, he couldn’t do it.  Not when he understood.

“Stop,” David managed to say, very gently pushing him away even as he allowed their foreheads to rest against each other.  Matteo’s eyes frantically searched his face, his lips folded between his teeth as tears brimmed his eyes again.

“I thought you said anything.”

“Not… not that.  Not when you’re upset. I don’t wanna kiss you when you’re like this, I’d be taking advantage,” David whispered, trying to soothe him before he got the wrong idea.  It seemed it was too late though  

“Then get out,” Matteo decided, pushing him away.  David blinked a few times and told himself not to take it personally.

“Matteo, I‒”

“I said get out.”

“Look, I understand you’re upset, but I think‒”

“What don’t you understand about get out?!  Clearly, I shouldn’t have even asked you over, you don’t understand when to fucking leave!  No wonder you stay holed up in the stupid fucking shop!” David couldn’t find any words.  “Yeah, I fucking know that you never leave!  What’s wrong with you anyway?  Are you fucked up too?”

David’s mouth went dry, “I‒”

Matteo shook his head, pushing him away even more as he tacked on a, “No, don’t tell me, I really don’t care.  Just get the fuck out of my house.”

David stood without another word and headed towards the door.  He knew he was upset, he knew he didn’t really mean anything he’d said, but it still hurt.  No matter how much he tried to make sure he didn’t take it to heart, it was too accurate to ignore.  He was fucked up.  Not even three years ago he’d been exactly where Matteo’s mom was and now it was hard to even step outside the house in fear he’d be right back where he was.  That was as fucked up as it got, wasn’t it?

His hand had just reached for the door to the apartment when he was stopped.

“Wait,” Matteo called, much softer than it had been less than a minute prior.  David reluctantly glanced over his shoulder to see Matteo standing in the hallway, looking weaker than he ever had.  And to think he had originally thought Matteo had nothing but confidence.  “What were you gonna say?”  David furrowed his eyebrows.

“When?”

“I asked…” Matteo trailed off, his eyes shifting towards the floor and his socked foot rubbed over the other one.  David gulped, taking his hand off the doorknob.

“Yeah, I’m fucked up too, we all are. You already pointed out I don’t leave the shop,” David said, admittedly sounding colder than he should’ve.  He knew Matteo was just acting out.  He hadn’t been on Matteo’s side of the equation, he didn’t know what it felt like to be raised by someone who couldn’t be trusted with their own life.  He just didn’t know.

“Why?”

David sighed, “Because when I leave, I’m too aware of bad shit that happens in the world and when I become too aware of that then I… want to do something stupid again.” David regretted it as soon as it said it.  He didn’t like to talk about what had happened.  He barely liked to think about it.  The whole situation was embarrassing.  Who reacts to graduating high school by trying to kill themselves?  He should’ve been happy for a new start, but he couldn’t be like that.  He found too much negative in positive things.

Except for Matteo.

“No,” Matteo said, though his face was heavy with the meaning of David’s admission, “Why’d you leave for me?”

Just like that, some of the tension that had been building in his body since he’d gotten that stupid text began to drain.  David leaned his back against the door, staring at Matteo who seemed more and more gutted by the minute.

“Because I really, really like you. I don’t think I’ve ever liked someone as much as I like you.  When you asked me to come over, I was barely even scared to leave, I was more scared for you to find out that I’ve got issues,” David admitted.  Matteo bit down his lip, nodding his head.  After a few too many minutes of silence, he decided that he should go.

“Wait,” Matteo repeated just as he went to turn the knob.  He sighed but waited anyway.  “I’m sorry that I ruined our first kiss.”

David’s forehead hit the door.

“Please don’t walk out that door.  I’m sorry.”

David was more than a little reluctant as he obeyed.  He needed to cool down and clear his head, but he didn’t want to leave Matteo alone.  That’s what everything seemed to point to.  He didn’t want to be alone.  That was a side of things David did understand, he understood it so goddamn well.  He wasn’t about to do that Matteo.

Within the next hour, David found himself lying in bed with Matteo tightly wrapped up in his arms.  Turns out cuddling is better medicine than laughter.  He felt relaxed for the first time in a long time and he was forcing himself to let it happen.  Too many times he’d let bad thoughts ruin good things.  He wasn’t about to let it ruin things with Matteo.

Sure, they needed to talk.  They needed to discuss a few important things and patch up a few hurtful things that had happened that night, but overall it felt like the start of something good.  Things were going to go better.  He could feel it.

A few days later, David found a real red tulip taped to the door of the flower shop even though they still had a couple weeks before they were officially in season.  It came with a note.

Believe me when I say…

[mst3kproject]

War of the Gargantuas

I know it’s not fair to go WTF, Japan? Japan has an entire film industry that I am mostly unfamiliar with.  They produce spy thrillers and romcoms and historical dramas in far greater numbers than they do weird-ass monster movies, and I really shouldn’t judge other countries’ cinema when I come from the land that produced Phil the Alien and Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter.  But then I watch something like War of the Gargantuas and I just… WTF, Japan?

In the first three minutes of this movie, a giant octopus with pulsating red eyes attacks a ship, but a shaggy green giant shows up, pounds the mollusk into submission… and then sinks the boat himself because fuck boats, I guess.  The Maritime Safety Board call the heavily medicated Dr. Paul Stuart, who had a ‘young gargantua’ in captivity a few years ago.  The creature escaped, but Dr. Stuart and his assistant Akemi insist that it was very gentle and tame, and could never have grown into such a monster. Further investigation reveals that there are two gargantuas, the green one living in the sea and a brown one up in the mountains – and that the green one grew, Reptilicus-style, from a scrap of flesh lost by the brown one!  This means, sure enough, that if you blow them to bits you’ll end up with a whole army of the things.  Fortunately, no movie with more than one kaiju in it has ever ended without the two of them fighting to the death!

Actually, the ending is way stupider than that. The two giants are in the ocean, kicking each other’s asses, when deus ex volcano suddenly erupts underneath them. This sucked in Legend of the Dinosaurs and sure enough, it sucks here, too.  It does provide a solution to the thing where any still-living scrap will grow back, but it renders everything the human characters have done ultimately pointless.

That means, yep, this is yet another movie in which the so-called heroes do nothing! Stuart and Akemi definitely get the most screen time.  They travel from place to place, looking for clues and having dull conversations, and a couple of times Akemi gets into peril so that Stuart and the brown giant can save her, but they never really do anything.  Nick Adams as Stuart looks like he has about as much idea what’s going on as Tom Holland in any given Avengers movie.  Judging by the movements of his lips, he’s speaking English while his co-stars’ lines are in Japanese, so it’s entirely possible he really doesn’t know what anybody’s saying.  He wanders around and mutters his lines like he’s high as a kite.

The closest Stuart and Akemi come to doing anything important is in flashback, where we get a brief look at them raising the baby gargantua they found somewhere.  This creature looks like a cross between bigfoot and one of those Japanese hot spring monkeys, and we’re supposed to infer a special bond between him and Akemi as she teaches him to drink with a straw.  In the movie proper, our supposed heroes urge the military not to blow the giants apart, and insist that the brown one is nice and should be allowed to live.  They fail, unequivocally, in both of these endeavors.  The army just keeps shooting at the giants with or without permission, and the general decides that the brown giant is an acceptable loss if they can kill the green one.  It might have worked slightly better if Brown had been saved by chance at the end, but he isn’t – the volcanic eruption consumes them both.

Since Stuart and Akemi don’t do much, the closest thing we have to an arc in this movie is, believe it or not, the two monsters. They represent the two sides of the kaiju coin – green is the monster that destroys humans, brown is the gentle creature that protects them.  The dual nature of Godzilla and his brethren was sufficiently well-established by 1966 that this might be an intentional attempt to comment on the genre, and it’s presented far more explicitly than the ‘good’ and ‘evil’ of monsters in a lot of films.  Brown is good and leaves humans alone, except when they need his help – then he goes so far out of his way to save Akemi than he actually breaks a leg when a boulder falls on it.  Green is evil, and actively seeks out humans to hurt them.

Green’s behaviour is at times quite shocking for a movie of this type.  In a lot of Japanese monster movies, particularly the ones in which the monsters become characters rather than mere forces of nature, human deaths are more implied than shown.  We may get shots of people running and screaming and debris falling, and that one guy hanging on to the tree in every single movie that ever had Rodan in it. The aftermath may show people in shelters or hospitals, but the monsters fight in empty streets and we’re often told that the cities they’re smashing have been evacuated.  Even when people do die, it’s more as a side effect of a giant creature moving around in a restricted environment.  The green giant, however, actually picks up humans and eats them, spitting out the bloody clothes when he’s done!  More than once we are actually shown somebody screaming in his grip as he raises the unfortunate victim to his mouth!

This dichotomy could provide the monsters with a good reason to fight, with a lot at stake for the humans, but War of the Gartantuas doesn’t make proper use of the idea.  We are never given a clear motive for the conflict that develops between the two giants.  When we first see them together, Brown is rescuing Green from the humans who want to hurt him, helping him hide from them and cleaning his wounds.  This brotherly relationship falls apart immediately once Brown rescues Akemi, but Green was not the one who put Akemi in danger. Perhaps Brown takes exception to Green eating people, but he never sees Green do that, either.  Perhaps he’s supposed to be upset that Green has turned the humans against them both, but the scene in which tourists run screaming from a giant, we can’t see well enough to know if it’s Brown or Green.  A little more insight into what the two monsters think of each other and how those feelings change could have been quite interesting.

All this means that even though War of the Gargantuas sounds like it should be ridiculous enough to be a good time, it doesn’t really have a lot to offer.  On a level of plot and visuals, this one emerges straight from the pits of WTF Japan that gave us Godzilla vs Megalon and Prince of Space. We have two hairy ogre-faced giants and a gratuitous monster octopus!  We’ve got laser gun battles and pretty women in peril and plot twists that make no goddamn sense!  Unfortunately, we’re never sufficiently interested in any of these characters, even the monsters, to really care, and the stupid ending leaves us wondering what happened to the WTF Japan movie we started with.  I cannot decide if the film takes itself too seriously or not seriously enough, but I feel like a slight nudge in either direction might have done wonders.

In This Island Earth the characters were pretty useless but at least their were some nice things to look at.  War of the Gargantuas doesn’t even have much by way of spectacle.  Some of the mountain scenery is very nice and tehre’s at least one very pretty matte painting, but there’s very little destruction of miniatures outside of one absolutely stellar moment when Green picks up a row of tanks, one by one, and throws them – each one lands squarely on somebody’s house, which is utterly destroyed… because fuck houses too, they’re basically land boats, am I right? Having discovered that the green giant is afraid of light, the army tries to fight it with lasers.  The effect for this is okay but not very interesting, and there are a couple of shots in which the giant costume is definitely on fire.  I hope the guy inside it was okay.

Insofar as the movie has anything to say, there’s some vestige present of a point about the trouble that develops when wildlife becomes acclimatized to a human presence.  At the beginning of the movie, the green gargantua is afraid of light, and so both the army and civilians use light to force him back into the ocean.  Later, however, he realizes that light means people and people mean food.  This is somewhat similar to what happens when bears, for example, learn that they can get food from campgrounds.  The bears leave their natural niches to go for these easier meals, thus putting both themselves and the humans in danger.  The situation is magnified in the movie because people are literally what Green eats, although it never tells us how or why he developed a taste for them.

If this were intended, then the movie neuters it just as it neuters the main human characters, by ending in a volcanic eruption. It’s a dumb coincidence that sucks all the impact out of the film like a narrative black hole.

War of the Gargantuas has also got one of the worst musical numbers I’ve ever seen in a movie, including some of the crap that was on MST3K!  There’s a gratuitous song performed by a terrible singer (the song itself is not very good, but it’s mostly her) on a restaurant balcony, oblivious to the monster looming up behind her.  I can just hear Tom and Crow chanting “eat her!  Eat her!” while Jonah tries helplessly to convince them that’s wrong.

[cost-of-chaos]

All You Need Is Love (Chapter One)

Roger Taylor x OC

Summary: Ronnie is an art student who’s friendship with Freddie Mercury has turned her life into one of fun and constant adventure. Life with a famous drummer boyfriend has been amazing so far but what will happen when backs are turned?

Note: This is my first Queen fic, so uh please be nice?

Words: 1.6K+

“Don’t go! Come with me on tour love, I’m gonna miss you so much!” The words echoed into the room from what must be our small kitchen down the hall. I was currently wedged between the bed and a small suitcase which was resting against our set of drawers in the fruitless endeavour of packing. I was surrounded by my whole wardrobe, and some of Rogers, as I attempted to pack clothes which wouldn’t add to the already mounting disappoint from my parents. The packing, however, was stalling as I tried to negotiate a clingy cat sitting I my lap nuzzling my arm for more chin scratches. I leant back against the wooden bed, groaning in frustration.

“Rog, you know I don’t want to go, but it’s Beatrice’s wedding, I need to go to it, I have no choice. You know I’d prefer to go on tour with you guys”

Roger appeared in the doorway cradling two steaming hand-painted mugs. After battling the messy room, he wedged himself beside me in the cramped space.

“I brought you a cuppa, that’s another thing they don’t have in lousy America, there’ll be no good tea over there!” He says, only half seriously, handing me a mug. I leant into his chest and the intoxicating scent of his expensive cologne combined with Marlboros filled my nose and a wave of sadness washed over me.

Taking a sip, I took up at him, he was looking rather adorable with messy bed hair and a three-day growth of stubble, and it made it even harder to go.

“Babe... Do you think they’d disown me if I abandoned my maid of honour duties to follow my rockstar boyfriend on tour to Japan?”

“How about we forget about the stupid wedding, we have...” he quickly glanced down at his black leather wrist watch, “ 6 hours until we need to leave for Heathrow, let’s make some fun memories for you to remember me by” he said with a wink, a cheeky grin rapidly growing across his face.

“ Hun, I’m only going for a wee-“ I was cut off mid-sentence by Rogers lips colliding with mine with such force and passion that a spark of heat instantly lit inside of me.

After a moment, I pulled myself away from his lips once I felt him start to deepen the kiss and unbutton my shirt. “I’m gonna miss you soo much, promise me you’ll miss me too?” I ask hating how whiny I was sounding. It was the first time I wasn’t accompanying the boys on tour and I knew how flirty he got after a good show, I mean that’s how we got together for god's sake!

-Flashback 1969-

“Alright love?” Roger flashed me the first of many cheesy grins, his eyes sparkled in a way that drew me in. He was pretty fit behind the drums during the show but now he’s standing in front of me his beauty shone.

His eyes slowly trailed over my body and I suddenly felt very subconscious in the short mini skirt and sheer blouse Freddie encouraged me to borrow from my roommate. “So Fred, care to introduce me to your friend?” He said, leaving his mouth slightly open in a way which made me wonder what they felt like.

Freddie turned back from the group of people he was talking to, bringing his attention back to the two strangers undressing each other with their eyes. “That’s just the most talented artist you’ve ever met! She’s making all of my work look like absolute shit in all my classes, her name is Veronica”

“You can call me Ronnie” I correct him, “and I’m not that amazing at art, really!” I force out a laugh, feeling awkward.

“I’d love to see your stuff sometime… Ronnie”

We were interrupted by Brian and John also wanting introductions to Freddie's new friend. The topic of the conversation quickly changed to one revolving the things which went wrong in the gig and new song ideas. Although I tried to keep up with the technical jargon I was hopelessly distracted by the gorgeous specimen in front of me enthusiastically talking about a new drum beat he’d made up the previous day. He was wearing an open vest and had necklaces adorning his neck. It was the type of outfit that would look ridiculous on anyone else but on him he oozed sex appeal. I couldn’t help but picture what it would be like to kiss that chest, to pull that soft looking hair as he did whatever he wanted to me. As he was standing there listening to the other guys, with his mouth hung open and his eyelids partially closed, I thought he was the prettiest man I’d ever seen before. It was while I was imagining kissing him that he finally looked up, noticing I was staring at him.

‘Fuck. Smooth Ronnie’, I mentally kicked myself. He gave me a cocky smile and I could have sworn he winked, but I started backing out of the little circle. “I’m just gonna get a drink!” I said quickly before running away to the bar.

Standing at the bar, I berated myself, 'how do I always embarrass myself like this? He’s going to think you’re pathetic'.

I turned around, leaning my back on the bar and watched as two beautiful women walked up either side of him. They were all over him, like cats in heat and I felt silly for even being interested in him. Of course, he's not going to be interested in me.

“Miss what will it be?” I tore my eyes off of the scene that was beginning to make me feel nauseous.

"A large Gin and Tonic please!" As I took a handful of nuts to occupy myself with as my drink was prepared, the couple next to me started bickering. Great! Even though I'm single I still get to listen to couple fights. What fun! I tried listening in to pick a side but my attention was drawn from them as I felt someone touch my bottom.

"How are you doin' love?" I heard a raspy voice in my ear.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" I yelled, slapping the handsy offender.

I felt my jaw drop as I turned around to see who it was, "Oh Roger, sorry I hit you!"

"Are you saying you want to be touched by me, Ronnie?" The sound of my name coming from him was intoxicating.

"Well, let’s just say you're a lot better than some of the guys who've hit on me recently." His face lit up with this, “Whatcha drinking Ronnie?”

“Just ordered a G and T”

“Make that two mate!” Roger yelled over the crowd to the barman.

"I thought you were talking to those two leggy blondes," I said, not being able to keep the judgement from seeping into my tone.

"Nah, I don't think either of them could even keep a conversation going... you, on the other hand, you seem interesting". I couldn't help but smile at his comment, "Why do you think that?"

"Well there is the obvious reason that you're a total fox, but I've also heard Freddie talk about how you're always reading, so you must be pretty smart, and on top of that, you have a bit of a personality, you actually stand up for yourself. You're different, and I like different."

He looked at you, his blue eyes twinkling, he looked so innocent and sincere. So different from the man with the groupies draped off his half-naked body a few moments ago.

"Well, you know how you wanted to see my artwork... do you want to come and see them now?" I asked in a moment of boldness.

"You know what? I'd love that Ronnie." He finished his drink in one gulp and took my hand in his, leading me through the crowd to the front door.

With the vinyl playing Fleetwood Mac softly in the corner of the room. Laying on our now unmade white linen in post-coital bliss, our legs intertwined and my head was resting on Rogers' chest as his breathing slowed down, this was the best goodbye I could’ve asked for. He looked boyishly handsome with his hair a mess and a rather large hickey now adorning his neck as my goodbye present to him. As he took a long drag of his cigarette, the sun came out of hiding behind the clouds and the sunflowers I’d painted on the window reflected on him making him look almost transcendent in the soft yellow light. He passed me the cigarette and I took a drag, blowing a smoke ring up in the air. I climbed off the bed and started to walk back to the packing pile but was pulled back onto the bed before I even made it halfway. I couldn't help but let out a squeal as Roger pinned me down onto the bed by my wrists, stealing back the cigarette and placing it in his mouth.

"Rog! I need to pack!" I argued, wanting nothing more but to stay in bed with him all day.

He put the cigarette out on the ashtray on the bedside table, "Just pack everything love" He said, nuzzling into my neck as he trailed kisses down my chest. "They won't like any of our clothes, we're too rock n roll for them" His kisses had now made their way past my belly button. He pulled my legs apart and kept going further down until he reached my wetness.

"Good idea" I stuttered out. It was going to be a miracle if I didn't miss this flight, but boy were we going to have a fun time being late.