#when the camera pans around a bit for a split second it's so cool

[flowersbyphone]

I. AM. GOING. TO. EXPLODE.

Classic Rock Media Archive posted a new film reel of Rush in 1976??? :O

[amazingphilza]

twitchcon :: cc!multiple x reader

fluff , platonic , gender neutral ! some mcyt headcanons if you were to attend twitchcon w them

cc’s included in order: tommyinnit , tubbo , ranboo , wilbur soot , philza , technoblade

cw: kinda lengthy for the minors (i think), not as much for the hags LMAO /hj

tommyinnit

this man is so excited to be at his first twitchcon & being able to hang out with all his best friends makes it a hundred times better

when he isn’t at a panel or doing meet & greets, he’s dragging you everywhere to see the whole convention center (clingyinnit)

he is just so at awe despite this not being his first convention to attend

you’d be surprised he gets tired pretty quickly & stops over to the partner lounge

you both rest for a bit against a wall in a pretty packed hallway despite it being an exclusive area to twitch partners

every time a famous streamer walks by he will yell it out and record it then vlog your reaction, even if they’re surrounded with bodyguards & trying to get to another place quickly

he’d zoom in his camera to their face at a horrible angle and be like

“oh my god it is THE ninja. ninja famous fortnite player, HELLO.”

but he gets completely ignored

then the camera pans out to you, still really zoomed in that the capture is blurry

“ninjainnit?”

“EH?”

tommy is so confused, forgetting the bit ninja did on his twitter where he renamed himself ‘ninjainnit’ for a split second

okay tommy isn’t that athletic but he will chase you and the rest of your group down a hallway if he had to

he’d probably find a toy gun from the artist alley/seller booths and shoot you and wilbur with it

but if tommy stumbles across any of the dream team, it’s about to be minecraft manhunt but irl

and he will def play his stream music while walking or smth when he’s bored (or trying to jump dream & sapnap)

** DO DO DO DO MANHUNT MUSIC **

oh my god,, now thinking about it he’s probably the one to open like random doors of empty rooms and steal stuff while you film him

like he will take a random empty glass, a bunch of pens, a freebie t-shirt, everything he sees he takes with him and you’re just panic

“tommy we’re literally not supposed to be here, and i’m stuck here filming you. it’s surely a felony in action”

“well, it’s their fault for leaving the doors open! plus this is great content. who’s the dirty crime boy now, HM?”

you’d tell wilbur about this and he’d scold tommy and threaten him with the same pen tommy stole

tommy probably would also drag you some weird event happening outside twitchcon along with tubbo and ranboo

“pokimane is giving out free pizza to everyone if we go to this one restaurant down the street!”

“we are literally gonna get bombarded. have you forgot you’re like three of twitch’s top streamers? i’d rather pay for all of our meals than try getting free pizza from pokimane against all her other fans”

“DEAL! let’s go to five guys then!”

you unfortunately end up paying for all 3 of their meals and picking on their food instead of buying your own

even with all of them making way more money than you, they still happen to be cheapskates

OR tommy will end up getting a burrito from a taco truck, immediately making a mess of himself, then proceed to complain how messy the food is to eat despite knowing what he was getting himself into before even ordering

“shit my clothes are all ruined now!”

“well that’s your fault you got a burrito, as if it’s your first time having one”

“i mean the food is good, i’m not complaining about that but i don’t think it’s that good that it’s worth costing my red and white shirt, im just saying”

tubbo

same with tommy, he is so excited

i don’t know why but i imagine him overpacking his suitcase and you making fun of him for it

anyway tubbo has his irl backpack on and streaming EVERYTHING

probably spends a lot of time at a bunch of different booths, checking out all the pointless gadgets he could buy for his stream

you’re the one to stop him from doing so

“TUBBO IT’S LITERALLY OVER TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS, STOP. DONT GET IT.”

“WHY NOT?? IT WILL BE COOL FOR MY STREAM AND I WILL USE IT EVERYDAY”

“okay theoretically speaking, how the hell are you going to even bring it home? which—let me remind you—is across the country for you and not to mention the giant ocean separating america and the uk”

“free ship-pang!!!”

“i hate to break it to you tubbo but there is no way you can get free shipping on a FIVE FOOT PC. it’s nearly as tall as you! what are you even gonna do on it, hack the government???”

the arguments are all lighthearted but eventually you give in and let him splurge over a thousand dollars in different devices he claimed he “needed”

i could honestly see him visiting the beaches in san diego and going for a swim or even renting out a boat to use for a bit :D

also he’d bring benson along with him and taking a bunch of scenic photos with it in them

i have a feeling he’s the type to schedule a spontaneous meet & greet because he was bored & gets in trouble for causing a mob in a certain part of the convention

he’s like “oh god, i did not expect this many of the bois to show up AHAHAH oops”

tubbo would def pull a lilypichu and bring his melodica or ukulele and play themes while following random people/cosplayers

at the end of the day, you’d find his bag just stuffed with crap he either got for free or bought in the convention

“how did you get all that stuff? i was with you all day??? and it’s only the first day of the convention, hello?? it looks like you’ve been collecting as if twitchcon has went on for a week already!”

“HA i have my ways, do not underestimate my powers”

lani would probably tag along for the vacation honestly

like whenever someone comes up to her giving her gifts/asking for pics, you and tubbo would tease her about how famous she is

and i dunno but something about tubbo just gives me this amusement park energy and going to legoland and spending the whole day there since it’s near by and because he can

ranboo

he is like a beacon in a sea of people, that’s it .

i honestly just see him causing as much chaos as the other two

ranboo would probably like take someone’s camera whether if they’re streaming or if it’s for the vlog, hold it up high, and point the camera directly above someone’s face

it did not matter how tall you were and if you had platform shoes on, ranboo was a skyscraper next to you

“HAHAH this is how i see you from this height, this is funny”

then he shows you the vid of the recording of him getting like an aerial view of your face

like you see your nose and all your pores and just overall a bad angle to be captured in

“OH GOD RANBOO DELETE THAT, ITS HORRIFIC”

i dunno why but i feel like he’d jump scare every person that was cosplaying as his minecraft character from behind for some reason

“BOO!”

“ranboo i’m not even remotely dressed as your skin—”

“don’t worry i’m practicing it’s fineee”

“you’re like the height of 2 people combined, i think you will be fine as is. you even intimidated the security at the front”

i feel like if he had his own panel he’d like pull up some undertale song in the middle of it and scare all the people in the crowd

“lore but in real life”

probably would get some matching keepsake with you from artist alley/the booths!

i could imagine like a cute keychain or smth :D

i feel like he’s the type to like randomly volunteer as a participant for those mini events in a booth thinking it would be funny but regrets it the moment he’s on stage

after introductions the presenter is like “okay ranboo, you will be given a random meme prompt above your head you won’t be able to see until after and you will have to make a random face to compliment it!”

and you can just tell by his facial expression he’s just thinking

oh god what have i gotten myself into

what is this game? who came up with this idea?

you’d laugh at him the whole time, even after he’s off the stage and finished with that small fiasco

“that was horrible. never again.”

“AHAHAH IT LOOKED SO AWKWARD YOU DID GREAT”

“I CROSSED MY EYES AND PUFFED MY CHEEKS BECAUSE I COULDNT THINK OF ANY OTHER FACIAL EXPRESSION. THE PROMPT ENDING UP BEING ‘WHEN TWITTER CANCELS YOU FOR USING PLASTIC STRAWS.’ AND WHEN I SAW WHAT IT WAS—LITERALLY WHAT KIND OF GAME–”

“I GOT PICTURES AND EVERYTHING ITS PERFECT AHAHAHAH”

wilbur soot

honestly with wilbur it’s slightly more chill

he already experienced twitchcon before so he’s just glad to see his friends again after so long

insists that you explore the convention yourself rather than sticking with him the whole time but you do anyway!

wilbur would probably have like a mini concert and gets you front row seats with the rest of the group

but that doesn’t mean before it that you’re not helping him set up

“y/n please– my amp is so heavy, i can carry it”

“don’t worry! i’m strong” :D

and musically talented or not, he will probably bring you and the rest of his friends up to stage to just vibe and sing a bunch of random acoustic songs

it’s not like some big concert hall stage,, i imagine more like a casual thing w a slightly higher platform from the ground yk?

after spending a long day at the convention he’d also bring everyone across the city to la jolla or smth !

you’d all probably have dinner there and chill, watching the pretty sunset

“this place is really pretty but oh my god im gonna lose my breath hiking up this stupid hill, please slow down”

and wilbur is like ??? because he’s completely fine with his long legs and everything

“just walk faster”

“no, you walk slower”

AHAHAH and for context traversing through la jolla by walking around the town is a bit hard since it’s basically on a bunch of hills (walking up from the beach to a restaurant actually is actually sm work, trust me ive been there)

wilbur honestly doesn’t spend that much time in the actual convention center, he’s probably sightseeing a bit of san diego with you instead

but i could imagine him staying at the tabletop games area playing dnd or smth

“c’mon y/n, come join!”

“uhh i’m not sure, i’m not the best at roleplay and...”

“it’s fine don’t worry!”

he’d pull you in with him and end up enjoying yourself even if it was your first time

and if you’re of age, you’d be wilbur’s +1 at the twitch partner party and make sure mans doesn’t too drunk

if it’s not too late in the night, you two would chill at the beach after the party

it’s just a nice, calming moment after all the loud music mixed with hundreds of conversations at the party

also something about like taking polaroids pictures with wilbur just seems to go hand in hand for me

i’m not sure why but you will be taking lots of pics with wilbur for sure (not necessarily you both in the photo, but of sceneries as well while you’re together!)

philza

literally a dad on vacation with his children, it doesn’t matter how old you are

need sunscreen? surprisingly has it

want a snack? probably has a small granola bar somewhere in his bag

but same with wilbur, he’s more chill like this isn’t his first time at twitchcon

omg he’d def bring you to the artist alley and just buy a bunch of fanart and stuff tho

“oh wow look phil, someone made a giant poster of the dream smp and shit!”

“holy shit that’s so good what the fuck!”

and he’s like rushing to that artist’s stall to buy a poster or print

idk why but phil seems like the person to know where he’s going all over the convention center

he probably had a copy of the directory map but yk

you just have trouble reading it bc all the signs seem to be misleading to you

nothing really crazy screams out to me of what phil would do at twitchcon besides like go to a few events, spend a bunch of time w his friends, etc

HOWEVER i could see him wasting a lot of his time at the gaming area and testing new games that are currently on the works of being developed

like “woah y/n, this vr game is sick, you should try it out!”

ngl i feel like phil would plan a visit to disneyland for everyone, like he gets the tickets and everything but once you’re at the park it’s free reign, y’all go everywhere with not much of a plan

the minors would try to cheap out phil and pay less than the others even though everyone else fully paid phil back and everything LMAO

ok but if he’s feeling nice, phil will buy everyone cotton candy/pretzels :D

and if you’re not hungry, he’d at least get you a mickey balloon

HE WILL HAVE MATCHING MICKEY EARS WITH MUMZA YES .

ALSO STAYING FOR THE FIREWORKS THOUGH OMG

just in general, best idea phil had for taking everyone to disneyland :D

technoblade

surprisingly techno is really calm despite this being like one of his first conventions

but when he finally settles in and gets comfortable, he’s showing the same energy

if you’re playfully yelling, he will yell back

however there’s still those awkward moments that are unavoidable

idk why but something about him makes me think that if you feel tired and want to go back to your hotel room, he’d go with you just to make sure you get there safe

he probably also needs a break from being around everyone else for a moment too LMAO

i could also see him searching far and wide in the artist alley for fanart of himself AHAHAH

walking around with him in the convention consists of someone yelling “BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD” every 5 minutes but you don’t really mind

something about him makes me think he’ll be forced into playing minecraft twitch rivals along with the rest of sbi or smth

and he’s like “oh god, i’m going to be on stage? and people will see my face while i play minecraft?”

“i’m sure it will be fun!”

“i mean i like being competitive and feeding my ego, but i’m not that desperate.. well”

do i imagine techno getting easily tired of being surrounded by a bunch of people and just going back to his hotel room with phil and watching some anime with him? yes

and will you watch even if you have no idea what’s going on? also yes

i feel like after a while of you guys hanging out in techno’s room, the rest of the gang will just slowly join you guys

like eventually everyone is there; you, techno, phil, wilbur, niki, tommy, tubbo, ranboo, etc

and techno is like “wha– where did you guys come from?” because his room is basically packed

and niki could be like “oh we can go if you want!”

then techno just insists that she’s fine “but who let the child get in?” clearly implying tommy’s presence

“OI!!”

eventually techno gives in with the company and someone gets a bunch of board games to play from the front desk

lots of yelling and laughing for sure

when it becomes late at night, techno is like half conscious, you’re on your phone, wilbur is staring out the window & enjoying the night view, tommy is passed out on the couch from tiredness, tubbo & ranboo is still wide awake quietly talking, and phil & niki are helping clean up the giant mess

eventually everyone brings themselves to go back to their own room except tommy who won’t budge

you give techno a look and he immediately understands what you were thinking

he rushes to the bathroom to fill up two cups with ice cold water and handed one to you

“on three?”

“okay.. one”

“two”

“three!”

then both of you pour the water on the poor child’s face

he jolts awake and saying a string of curses

“what the fuck techno? y/n too?”

“get out” is the only think techno says that before tommy rushes out with his stuff and you leave right after

a/n: i honestly can’t wait until conventions open up again though,, phil and ranboo were talking about vidcon earlier and omg.

also i kinda want to take in tommy requests but i’m not sure??? it would be both cc! and c! x gn!reader for sure tho. i love writing him to bits but who knows, maybe i’ll only stick to my ideas,, or not. send in a tommy x reader request, might do it, might not, but he’s my fav cc if you can’t tell so! :D (i dunno if i will keep it strictly platonic, but unrequited crushes and stuff are fun to write hehe,,)

edit: let’s hope i fixed all the grammar mistakes LMAO we love writing late at night :) /s /hj

[arcane-ish]

Book of Silco: Chapter 7

Enforcer : Hey. Stop right there!  Benzo: What the devil... Vander: No. Benzo: Silco? You animal. Go crawl back into whatever hole you came out of. Vander: Benzo, stay back. Silco: You never did know when to walk away. Vander:Wait. No! Silco: Hmm. Stubborn to the end.

1.) I have to admit, I’m kind of confused by the logistics of this scene how Deckard alone can kill so many people so quickly. As we pan away there seems to be at least 3 or 4 enforcers, including Grayson. (in the scene preceding this we only say Marcus and Grayson enter Benzo’s shop and the scene right before it I would say we see about 3 enforcer shadows. But it certainly would make sense for Grayson to have brought a larger team for this arrest.)

2.) The world devil is used. There’s definitely demons in the League of Legends world, but devil and particularly “the devil” seems a bit weird. And of course they speak of the devil and Silco shows up from the mists. Benzo picks up a weapon from the flood in this shot. 

3.) I’m not sure whether Vander’s no is supposed to be a general “omg everything is going to shit” or specifically about Grayson? Not sure whether the angle of the body in the front really fits with what we see of her dead body? Seems to me that Grayson would be lying left of the show we see and of course with her front towards the camera. 

4.) Shallowly, this scene of them staring into the mist as if it is very hard to see will never not be funny to me, because it doesn’t look that misty to me. Yeah I guess it’s misty, but I dunno, just how many short there are or how “overacted” they kind of feel is just funny to me.

5.) Getting Vander’s expression as it goes from squinting to wide eyed was a bitch to catch, it’s really super split second. I guess what is noteworthy is that it is Vander’s expression that is important, even though both Benzo and Marcus could also recognize Silco in this situation. 

6.) Cool cinematography of Silco’s eye glowing out of the mist. From his position it seems Silco was pretty away from the actual Grayson killing action. Deckard seems like he’s going from side to side in front of Benzo’s while Silco comes fro the far bar.

7.) So what’s noteworthy here is that  (i) Benzo knows Silco and recognizes him immediately (II) He immediately sees Silco as the threat and starts storming towards him (III) He has some harsh words for Silco. And crawl beck into the hole you came from would kind of be extra saucy if the backstory about Silco having been a child laborer in the mines is true. 

Vander meanwhile seems to be mostly stunned/dumbfounded. 

8.) So personally, when I watched this scene first, my only read was that Vander is scared for Benzo, he knows that Silco is dangerous and that attacking him is a bad idea and so he wants Benzo to stay back. I guess you could also read it as he doesn’t want Benzo to attack Silco, that he wants to resolve this peacefully? Seems kind of hard to buy with bodies littered around? Seems more plausible that the bodies littered around would give Vander the idea that Benzo shouldn’t be walking out there. 

9.) The other side of the coin. We know Benzo dislikes Silco. We now also know that Silco has a low opinion on Benzo (his reaction would probably be closest to irritated). It should be noted that Silco stays calm and indifferent at the prospect of Benzo coming in and he doesn’t give an explicit order to Deckard. 

10.) Vander tries to get Benzo to stop. Beno gets tackled from the side. Vander very much not happy.  It should be noted that Benzo is decidedly not an enforcer as we keep track of Silco’s crimes (that said within in his moral code, he was in the process of attacking Silco and from Silco’s POV they are cooperating with enforcers)

11:) Vander falls to his knees and slumps. Silco is being pithy, again, apparently referencing some sort of shared history with Benzo. (In case that isn’t obvious, this is a pretty cold reaction to somebody’s death) Also, Silco kind of eye-sexes the camera here. 

12.) In general this is supposed to be the first time after at least a while that Benzo and Vander have seen Silco. Is this the first time they see his face injury? Or have they been in contact since his post drowning transformation? One of the many things we don’t know. 

[worstloki]

The Sylvie Show

this got a bit long so i'm putting it under a cut but basically it's episode summaries of what i would do if the loki show had sylvie as the main character instead, since I do think the plot of the show would be better suited to be focused around her rather than 2012 loki. I've tried to keep it so that a lot of existing canon shots/sets/scenes can be reused.

episode 1: the show opens up with young Sylvie on Asgard. The TVA appear and drag her towards a temportal. She wakes up from the apparent nightmare, gasping heavily. cue title card and cool music. a portal opens within a church, sylvie interrupts the man giving a talk on religion, questioning what he's saying with roundabout logic and being generally witty, even managing to incorporate giving a bar of gum she had in a pocket to a child sitting on an aisle seat who is really happy about it. the man is still coming up with an answer to what she said when the doors of the church are broken open and TVA agents start to file in. Sylvie says "about time," and proceeds to have fun slaying the unit and stealing a tempad. She picks up the charge on her way out, sending a blow kiss to the devil mural on the wall on her way out. cut to stepping out of a temportal, throwing the charge behind her over a shoulder (it lands on a mattress) and taking a heavy seat in front of a set of screens which show the inside of a mall. the cameras are mostly empty and where there are people it does not fascinate her (one of them shows someone reloading shelves). she scrutinizes the screens, drumming fingers on the table, but quickly sighs and pulls out her tempad: it flashes with low battery and she rolls her eyes, throwing it into a bin filled with likewise empty devices. she's about to get up when the cameras show a group of agents walking into the store. among them is one with a jacket reading VARIANT in bright orange. "Sh*t," she says, getting up and going to the mattress, rifling through a pile of clothes on the floor next to it "sh*t sh*t sh*t where is it". She pulls out a dark brown jacket, and the camera pans over to the screens again, where the VARIANT turns: it's Loki. A golden portal opens on the beige walls of the TVA, Hunter C-20 stepping through holding a man in 1940s army uniform by the arm and dragging him towards a desk. the man protests but she places a grenade on the counter and tells the deskworker to log it. "it wasn't a dummy," is the explanation she gives. In the background a single guard steps through a portal, looking around and proceeding to the doors out of this room. It's Sylvie, and she walks alone past other guards and rooms labelled Court and Memory Chamber. A group of people run past her saying a variant is loose and she walks faster. She walks past one court room, catching the words "trust me, you can smell the cologne of two Tony Starks," but continues looking around. An analyst (Mobius) rounds the corner in the direction of the court rooms and seems to be in a hurry, and Sylvie takes a sharp turn opening the closest door to her to avoid being seen. She is in a room with a Sacred Timeline screen, and zeroes in on the man closest to her, "what are you--" she places a hand over his mouth and pushes him down into his desk area behind his trolley, shushing him. "Do you know where the Reset Charge Storage Chambers are?" "Why?" *deep breath* *serious face on* "Tell me where the storaGE CHAMBer iS or I'll GUT YOU like a goAT!" "is that... like a fish?" *confusion* "how do you not know what a goat is?!" she spots a poster on the wall with a location guide and pushes Casey away with a hand to the face. "Nevermind." - We see Loki monologuing "the idea that your little club decides the fate of trillions of people across all of existence at the behest of three space lizards, yes, it's funny. It's absurd." an agent walks past in the background pushing a trolley but no attention is brought to it "I thought you didn't like to talk," mobius says. Sylvie pushes a door reading "Storage: Units" open, but looks and finds bodies in little cyro pod chambers lined up. "wrong door," she says, and pulls the trolley across the hall to the door reading "Storage: Charges." She's in a room with shelves filled up with reset charges, and opens the trolley drawer to find it already filled up with useless junk like infinity stones and such. to which she has no reaction. She shoves all that stuff to the side and out of the drawer, making space to

carefully place reset charges there. She individually picks up the two Tesseracts in it though and admires them, saying they're shiny and placing them on lower shelves in the room instead of on the floor. While she loads up the trolley ("a few more should do it") Loki walks past the door in full TVA outfit, happy and carrying a stack of papers that read RAGNAROK in bright red letters. She closes the drawer, takes her Hunter helmet off to shake out her hair and wipe sweat from her forehead, then puts it back on, pushing the trolley towards the door. Mobius has a hand at Loki's back, guiding him out of the Memory Chamber, Loki has clearly been crying and Mobius comforts him "it won't be so bad, you love being useful. and wearing suits." Sylvie walks past, pushing the trolley in the background. Sylvie continues down the hall, and when she sees no one behind or in front she pulls out her tempad and opens a portal, pushing her trolley and herself through. She's already gone and misses Classic Loki with a collar around his neck being escorted through the hall. - Sylvie and her trolley push through the portal and are in a mall, the lights dim and flickering above. Thunder is heard and lightning strikes as she places a reset charge on a shelf, flicking open a panel on it's side, and then walking a bit further and placing another. "May I help you?" a store employee asks, startling her. She considers. "Actually..." and places a hand to the person's temple - it takes a few seconds of effort but her fingertips glow green, and so does the person's eyes and temple, "don't mind if you do." She walks away from the trolley in a rush, and the store worker behind places a reset charge on a shelf. "I'm a bit short on time," she says to herself, pulling out her Tempad. Suspenseful music as the screen fades to black. - Everything cuts to a desert, with a small town in the background. A portal appears high up, and Loki falls from it to the ground. the words "twelve miles east of Puento Antiguo" appear on screen, and we see Loki formed a small crater in the ground, reminiscent of Mjolnir and the one in Stark Tower. "Ow," Loki says, taking the muzzle off with one hand, and then pulling the cuff chains off. The dust settles around him and he's still extricating himself from the hole in the ground and groaning about sand being irritating and getting everywhere when a golden portal opens up (we get a high shot, showing that Loki did indeed land within a larger crater too). Loki puts his hands in the air. "Appears to be a standard sequence violation. Branch is growing at a stable rate and slope. Variant identified." "Beg your pardon but I--" "On behalf of the Time Variance Authority, I hereby arrest you for crimes against the Sacred Timeline." "I didn't meddle with time, that would be the Avengers." "You're coming with us." *agents point pruners at him* "It's been a long day, I'm afraid you'll have to make me." *loki's hands start to glow green but B-15 presses a button, freezing him in place. Any sand blowing in the wind or any dust rising has also now stopped. There is a bird stuck mid-flight. B-15 pulls out a collar and places it around his neck. An agent places a reset charge on the ground and activates it, it starts to fizz purple. Time unfreezes and B-15 drags Loki going "hey!" through a temportal, and it closes, leaving the audience to watch a few seconds of the charge going off and the radius of the charge increasing, washing the ground in a bright neon-ish light.

Episode 2: this one is a combination of the Loki episodes 1 and 2. Basically, Loki goes on trial, the TVA has no reason he's committed a crime, but Mobius who had been at the church crime scene saves him and takes him to the memory chamber to break. What gets him to stop acting as if he actually wanted to rule all of space and whatnot is Mobius bringing up the topic of choice in Avengers 1, and asking if Loki knew the mind stone was effecting him too, along with him explicitly asking about the torture which happened before, even during - he pulls up footage - the invasion. Mobius pulls up footage of Frigga and Loki pickpockets the collar remote etc. everything else remains the same, including most of episode 2, with Sylvie fighting to "I need a hero" etc, but C-20 is left behind after being enchanted. When the TVA show up C-20 is tied up hastily in leather belts and rope. She's mostly out of it saying stuff like "it's real, it's all real" but she also says "we're variants, we're all variants" which Mobius obviously brushes over casually. Loki narrows his eyes though, and says stepping out of the renaissance fair tent would have them winding up dead like the agents scattered around here, B-15 calls bluff and Mobius says to wait but the people walking in front of the ones holding C-20 up to take her to the TVA for medical help fall dead upon stepping out. Loki was stalling for time with the wold anecdote, and doesn't tell how he knew the death thing would happen ("I see a scheme, and in that scheme I see myself" "bullsh*t" "it's true. my reflection looks quite good, too." "you *sshole." *he smiles softly, as if t'were a compliment*), and everyone gets back by opening portals from within the tent. The dots between the gum and the apocalypses is drawn, they see Pompeii, end up going to Roxxcart, where we see Sylvie watching the screens, now in her leather gear. B-15 and Loki split up together, the guy at the 'hurricane sale' placed a charge on the shelf but no attention is drawn to that bc Loki and 'Loki' are talking. Sylvie emphasizes that she holds a grudge because he's a traitor, specifically for working for the TVA because they're "condescending time fascists." Loki assures her he knows, and that he's seen the charges around the place. She comes to the realization that he's been undercover/faking. We're shown Mobius and co. finding the room with screens but it's just got Sylvie's random junk, nothing really useful. They talk some more, no physical fighting but the vessel sizes get bigger and Loki calls it 'real mature'. While they still disagree on what to do with the Time Lizards (destroy or overthrow) Sylvie settles on leaving the portal open for him at the end and giving him a chance. She waits for him to go through first, with Loki looking back at Mobius meaningfully determined and then walking through.

Episode 3: Young sylvie is going through the stripping/signing/temporal aura process. She's sent into the court room. she bites and runs out of the room, putting distance before fiddling with the tempad she took, figuring it out, while Renslayer gets stuck answering the Judge. Sylvie appears back on Asgard, but there's already a Sylvie there playing with her toys. a TVA portal opens and she presses another "Asgard" on the device to escape quickly. "I just want to go home," she says to herself, appearing in the same room, but the child is a bit older (a teen?) and a boy and black and reading instead of playing but he's clearly also in green/gold and a loki. the kid turns after hearing her and she panicks and goes through another portal. another one with adult loki in the same room, she looks hopeful as if she could ask for help but then sif walks in with insults and slaps him but spots her. "who's the kid," sif asks and a portal opens up next to her. Agents step through and Sif punches one that does, asking Loki what trick this is now. Sif/Loki fight them while they're still coming through, sylvie presses another asgard but sees a knocked out agent has a tempad on his belt and takes it before running again. no loki in the room, it's empty, but a group of people rush across, talking hurriedly about 'the goddess of death' and 'odin's real heir' and 'thor and loki dead' and 'seeking refuge in the moutains.' Sylvie looks lost. Cue titlecard and cool music. They step into the TVA. Sylvie is determined, telling Loki to hurry because they won't have much time the TVA remains in disarray from the reset charges everywhere, but stops when he says he needs to get a weapon. "Why didn't you use magic to get some earlier," she asks. "Spares," he smiles, "magic doesn't work here after all." Sylvie notes that it explains her last attempts to infiltrate failing so badly. They fight some guards together on the way to the elevator rather than fighting each other. The elevator to the time keepers opens but Renslayer and a bunch of guards are in it waiting. Sylvie grabs Loki and tries to use him as a bargaining tool. Doesn't work, obviously, and Sylvie is shaken upon coming face to face with the same Hunter who had caught her as a kid, she doesn't react in time to stop Loki taking her tempad and dropping them somewhere. Same plot from here, the two of them fighting over the tempad, with Sylvie wanting to go back and Loki telling her they clearly already failed and she should explain what's going on first. She says she doesn't need to and if he wants to help defeat the TVA he needs to trust her and give the tempad back. He makes it vanish and she gets frustrated, asking if he gives up on everything that easily, and maybe that's why he's the first Loki she's seen working with the TVA. Etc. They need a power source anyway and get to the train hoping it'll lead to the ship that won't get off-planet anyway. Loki acts a fool Sylvie naps, wakes up to singing. Sylvie calls him out for not actually being drunk and also he downs a glass and offers her one, and when Sylvie asks how he's paying for it he says it's on the house and points to the barkeeper (male. we're implying/showing flirting. maybe a wink at him or a cute wave.). It's blatantly clear he's trying to get info on her backstory along the way and she's not falling for it but allowing him to know a bit of stuff. (eg. "I know everything is watered down ale for an Asgardian," "watered-down watered-down, more like. But you know of Asgard? Do go on...") She softens at hearing his backstory, and shares hers too. The people appear and ask to see their tickets, everything is the same from here forward. The episode ends with them watching the ship getting destroyed.

Episode 4: different music when sylvie and loki look into each others eyes since i didn't like that. cue titlecard and song after the TVA portals open on Lamentis. this episode remains the same mostly with Sylvie and Mobius driving the plot. No narcissist comment but Mobius gets to act jelly of what Sylvie and Loki have going on. Instead of it just being a bad memory loop with Sif we get her three times and then it alternates to Thor who is also angry. If he's not already down Thor will punch him (even though Loki is just happy to see him bc he didn't think he'd see him again--) and then tell him to hold still so it'll hurt less. It's framed as bad and Thor will imply it's only a fitting punishment. Thor is only shown twice, the first time the scene cuts at Loki being hit and held down, the second is Thor leaving the room, chuckling about how Loki didn't need to talk to anyone anyway bc he's alone, says he'll heal soon anyway. Loki isn't shown, but Thor's fingers have blood on them where they hold mjolnir. the loop resets and Loki is back to standing in the middle of the room and ghosts a hand over his mouth and then Mobius arrives. Loki calls the repeated memory boring and cruel, says he hates when Thor is drunk and feeling rash, with Mobius saying at least he didn't send him to Thanos or something and gave his crotch a break. Sylvie asks what her nexus event was and Renslayer doesn't remember. The end of the episode is the same, with Sylvie 1v1-ing Renslayer and beheading a Time Keeper, Loki getting pruned. The credit scene remains the same.

[botwstoriesandsuch]

In an effort to stop you from going insane from the anatomy asks, and because I'm curious and the Kip Cut is fantastic, I have some questions to ask: Firstly, if you were to add a weapon to any character in Age of Calamity, who would you add it to, what would it be, and why? Secondly, if you could add any character seen in Age of Calamity or Breath of the Wild to the roster, who would it be, what weapon would you give them, and why would you add them?

Ohh, this is cool! Thanks!

Bands are laaame, boooooooooo. Maz Koshia the FUCK you doing, you literally set up a trial with one of the most interesting weapons in botw, the One-Hit Obliterator??? Ummmm Those concept arts are just WAITING to be used, there’s even three types if you want to stick to the three tier system (and I know that it’s technically adding more that “a” weapon but I just think it’s cooler than his friendship bracelets ok?)

I could already see it now, like the parts could glow everytime he’s summoning those giant hammers and spikes, and then in an idle animation he could sit and meditate and it would turn into those four glowy orbs, can’t frickin do that with some rainbowloom bracelets now can you?

Alright so for the second one, casting aside Sooga, Purah, and Robbie, as they’re probably gonna be DLC. (Give Robbie the Ancient Bladesaw Nintendo...we’re waiting...) I just want my boy KASS. KAAASSSSS.......where were you in this game T_T I cry...they had room for two new villains and the four new gen champs and not KASS, the fucking EMODIMENT of connecting the past and the present heLLO??? I cry everytime....I wouldn’t even care if he was just an NPC I just wanted to see him....

Sooo, Kass moveset and weapons? I actually had two ideas. One, the obvious thing, where he has three types of concertinas, with the highest tier being his version in Botw. OR, and this plays into the moveset I wanna give him, he has different types of song/sheet music so his different weapons would be “Song of ___” or whatever. He’s already got sheet music wrapped by his waist so just like, make an icon out of that and boom, it’s a weapon now. And I KNOW that’s not unrealistic because fuck you, the Great Fairies and Maz Koshia have jewelry.

I don’t CARE if he has no use in the current story I will rewrite it AGAIN just to shove him in because I fucking deserve it. Uhhh, screw it, the plot point is now “The New Gen Champs don’t teleport directly into the Divine Beasts but instead just teleport directly in Hyrule Field kinda where Terrako is but it’s still a bit further away, and when Terrako plays his little tune and Zelda’s like ‘wtf’ but then Terrako’s little tune is echoed on a different instrument in the distance and then camera pan, horizon establishing shot, BABAM, Kass is there.” Aaaand, he can be there for exposition purposes, cause he actually would server really well for that. He can look around and just know what’s going on like “ah yes, I heard a bop about this once” and then since I’ve now retconned that the new gen champs have spawned in Hyrule Field too Kass can be like “Oh, a Rito, a Goron, a Gerudo, a Zora. Yeah betcha you all are here to go to the Divine Beasts or something” and then Terrako could chirp and Kass should be able to understand him perfectly like he’s speaking words like “Ah yes! Terrako was your name? Yes well Terrako here says that Impa is a little shit” because Terrako speaks in song and Kass can, should, and would bond to that. And also BABAM, fixed your fucking pacing Nintendo, if all the New Gen Champs spawn in Hyrule Field as you let Kass kinda round things out, then you can have four seperate Divine Besat reclamation missions, and have the champs split up to help the og champs in the mean time, that way you don’t have to deal with the moral dilema of “who do we save first” because now Zelda and Link actively know that someone is helping them. You’re FUCKING welcome. And you can still have your little cutscenes where they jump in just in time, and you can still have your little explanation of them “hearing” the Champions because uh...Time Magic idfk magic portals do whatever fuck you, Kass is here now no takebacksies

I’d think Kass’ moveset would be some weird combination of Hestu and Sidon. Maybe the Sidon thing where you click ZR during strong attacks, but it’s to like “stay on beat” or something? And then Hestu because yeah. And you know instead of making monsters dance, because I think Hestu only does that because it’s magic maracas, Kass should be able to like stun enemies, or get them to be in a daze, because wow his music is so enchanting and alluring and beautiful they just stop in their tracks to listen to him. 

I’m not too set on the specifics here, considering I am a writer and it’s a bit difficult to convey gameplay through words and a lack of experience with animation. But, basically he plays a song on his concertina (And the song and notes would slightly vary depending on the “weapon” he has equipped. And you know how in Warbler’s Nest you can see the notes the kids sing in the air with those different colors? So depending on the weapon Kass has those colors would also change) and just like how Sidon’s smile just inexplicably damages enemies, Kass’ song is just so powerful and amazing that monsters just fall flat on their face. ALSO one of his weakpoint smashes should be him uppercutting a Moblin with his concertina because I don’t know where it is, but there is fanart of that somewhere, I have seen it, and I need it to be a reality. 

[artificialqueens]

Down with the Recipe, Bake from the Heart, 1/10 (Multi) - Juno

Summary: This year’s Great British Bake Off will see some baking for sure, but also a few surprises. Tayce goes into the Bake Off tent determined to bring the winning cake stand to Wales, along with a few Star Baker badges, but her attention may not be on baking for too long as she gets to know fellow baker Aurora, on the same row as her. And judging by the other contestants, Tayce might not be the only one focusing on something other than baking this season.

A/N: This is a DRUK2 group based on GBBO - there are a few ships! It’s also on AO3 with 12 chapters but I will post here with 10 for ease as the first two and last two will are being done together. No CWs for this chapter! I hope you enjoy.

PROLOGUE - October 2021

It had been Cheryl who had suggested a live react to the grand finale of this season of Bake Off, so the twelve finalists could all gather together, watch the finale, and then the winner’s reaction could be captured on film and put on the internet for the whole world to see. Cheryl hadn’t even been in the cast - she’d been on the previous season - but she said she’d become invested in the season and the bakers so much so that she hadn’t wanted to let them go yet.

And judging by the public’s reaction to her tweet about it, she wasn’t alone.

Pip had mentioned in their group chat that her sister had a big town house in the Wirral, and she’d offered to let them all use it as a base for their live watch. Channel 4 didn’t have anything purpose-built for them, and the filming location wasn’t available, so they’d all jumped at the chance. Plus, Liverpool served as a good mid-point for them all - it saved Joe having to go all the way to Dundee or Ellie having to go to Brighton.

Aurora had marvelled at the amount of space there was once they’d all arrived the previous day. The living room and dining area were one, with a dining table probably big enough to fit a couple of football teams at it; and the kitchen led into the room with an arched doorway. The kitchen itself was enormous too, in highly polished white surfaces that Aurora was terrified to touch with her probably-impure fingers

“Bit posh, isn’t it!” She’d muttered to Tayce.

Pip’s sister and her husband were staying away, and they had the place all to themselves - the twelve of them reunited, with just Blu and Cheryl for company, operating a handheld camera with the intention of sending the finale footage for Channel 4.

As three endings had been recorded back in June, with each of the finalists winning one of the takes, the actual winner’s reveal would be a surprise to all of them, including the three finalists, and ensure no slip ups from the production team.

That didn’t stop all twelve of them worrying. None of them had slept a wink, all of them keeping an eye on Prue’s twitter to make sure she hadn’t accidentally tweeted the winner again. But mostly they’d been together, reminiscing on some of the moments from the season that had made them laugh. All the funny moments, all the tense moments, and one or two viral moments loaded with innuendo.

Not to mention everything else that had blossomed in tandem with nature that springtime.

It had been quite a season. They’d started out as strangers, and now they were so tightly-knit that they hadn’t even entertained the thought that they would possibly be watching the finale without all of them in the same space.

Aurora swilled the glass of champagne that Joe had insisted on pouring for everyone, and watched all of the people she’d grown close to on the season, a peaceful atmosphere in the room as they waited for the finale to start.

Well, not all of them were peaceful. Lawrence and Ellie were being their usual loud selves, jousting with wooden spoons and shrieking as loudly as they ever did - but Bimini was utterly still for the first time since Aurora had met them, laid against Asttina’s chest as they both reclined on one of the sofas, while Asttina raked her fingers through their mullet; and Bimini’s eyes were closed, their lips in a sleepy smile.

Aurora felt familiar hands creep around her waist, a familiar chin rest on her shoulder from behind, and familiar lips at her cheek.

“I can’t believe it’s coming to an end now,” Aurora murmured, her thoughts escaping her unfiltered, as they sometimes did with Tayce at this close range.

“Well, it was never gonna be forever,” Tayce said into her ear. “But we’re all gonna be friends after this, aren’t we! The wonders of technology! Come into the twenty-first century, Rory. We have this thing called the internet, and group chats, and phones -”

“We’re not all just gonna be friends, though, are we?” Aurora replied.

“We’re all just besties, nothing more than that. Rory, I’m joking!” Tayce laughed at Aurora’s horrified expression. “All I’m saying is that this isn’t the end - just the beginning.”

“That’s so cheesy.”

“Yeah, but I’m right, you can’t deny that!”

Aurora let her eyes drift around everyone else in the room.

Tia and Veronica who had barely left their corner of the sofa, hands and legs wound tightly together, both with hearts in their eyes and bigger smiles than anyone else in the room as they chatted quietly, simply enjoying each others’ company.

Lawrence and Ellie, wooden spoons still in hand, making the most noise in the room in delighted laughter as they jousted with each other, almost knocking Pip over as she carried in another tray of snacks to lay on the dining table.

Bimini resting against Asttina’s chest as they reclined on the other sofa, Asttina still running her fingers through Bimini’s freshly-dyed mullet, both of them letting out a contented sigh in tandem.

“Yeah,” Aurora murmured, as Tayce held her tighter, “I guess so.”

——

WEEK 1: BISCUIT WEEK

April 2021

Tayce grinned at the cameras as they panned around everyone. She’d given the interviewer her spiel about how much she’d always dreamt of being in the gingham tent and how excited she was to bring the winning cake stand to Wales for the first time in Bake Off history; and a surprising calm settled in her chest, nerves dissipating, at the genuine warm aura from everyone and everything in the room.

At least Tayce wasn’t in full view of the judges right at the front. That privilege was reserved for two people from London, both of whom looked right at home in front of the cameras, although their names were a mystery for now.

It was all very familiar from seeing it on the telly the last eleven years. Immaculate worktops with varnish that shone like glass; the tent walls decorated with bunting and flowers, and the pastel shelves and adorned with china cups; the multi-coloured KitchenAids ready to whisk, fold and anything else - Tayce’s was pure white, while the woman from Nottingham on the bench opposite her had a turquoise one.

Tayce chanced another glance at her; the tight-lipped smile showed a single dimple, and her long blonde hair was tied off her face, but her fingers drummed nervously on the workbench, and she evidently wasn’t as poised as the veneer she displayed for the cameras.

Tayce smiled to herself. It’ll be fun winning this thing.

——

Signature: 24 Iced Biscuits

The best bit of the show when it was on the telly was the banter between Matt and Noel. Seeing them in person, even from a distance away, made Tayce’s stomach bubble with excitement, and she had to cling to the workbench a little tighter to stay upright.

“Well, bakers, welcome to the gingham tent! Back for another season of Prue-Paul’s Baking Race!”

Prue’s sweet smile was complemented by her brightly-coloured glasses and sharp, matching blazer, while Paul’s cool stare lingered on everyone in the room a split second longer than they all would have liked.

“For the signature today,” Matt said, “the judges would like you to make twenty-four iced biscuits. The biscuits can be any flavour -“

“ - but should tell the judges a little bit about yourselves or where you’re from.”

“Where are you from, Noel?”

“Oh, you know, the moon.”

Everyone was laughing, even Tayce; although it wasn’t that funny - but the whole room was dancing with nerves by now, starting to become contagious from the people around her.

“On your marks -“

“Get set -“

“BAKE!”

Once Matt Lucas and Noel Fielding had declared the immortal lines to the room, everyone was scrambling for ingredients from their bags and the fridges.

Tayce was still cringing a bit at the dragon-shaped cookie-cutter her mum had found in some gift shop near the castle in Cardiff. She didn’t understand why tourists would be making dragon-shaped biscuits inspired by their trip to Wales, but for once she was thankful for tourists. Her friend Cara had customised it a little when she’d seen her a couple of weeks ago, by melting the tail with her lighter, elongating it a little, and extending the jaw and ears to make it look a little more ferocious.

“Can’t have people thinking you’re not breathing fire,” she’d said, passing the cigarette back to Tayce, “otherwise they won’t think you’re competition.”

And Tayce had nodded, holding smoke in her lungs half a beat longer than usual, wondering if she cared whether anyone thought of her as competition. After all, it was Bake Off. The last sabotage attempt there had been a national scandal the following day.

The most unproblematic, drama-free show on the telly.

Nothing was going to happen here.

——

“The judges are coming for you next,” one of the cameramen nudged Tayce out of her thoughts, just as she was measuring out her flour, causing it to fly upwards in a cloud “Just a heads up. Oh, sorry love.”

“Right, right.” Tayce nodded, brushing flour from her face. “What do I say to them again?”

“Just … talk. It’s the first episode. Show them your personality.”

“Personality,” Tayce repeated, nodding. “I’ve got oodles of that.”

“Great stuff. And don’t forget to be doing something bake-ey while they’re coming over.”

The cameraman dodged out of the way to make room for the medical team, running to help the woman in front of Nottingham, who had managed to slice her finger on something already.

“Here they are,” Tayce muttered to herself, taking a deep breath and straightening as the judges, along with Matt and Noel, came over to her.

“Morning, Tayce!”

Paul Hollywood was shorter than he appeared to be, and Prue Leith was taller, but nothing prepared Tayce for meeting either of them. Tayce held her breath for a split second, smiling somewhat mechanically to try to mask the sudden heat in her face.

“Bore da, folks! I’ve brought the weather with me!” Tayce beamed, indicating the heaving downpour of rain that was falling outside the tent; and they all laughed politely.

Tayce momentarily stopped concentrating on the judges and noticed the woman opposite her, turning to watch Tayce interact with the judges. And every time she was describing the perfect quality that her dragon-shaped shortbread biscuits would turn out, she seemed to slow her actions, looking up over at them.

The conversation was light, but Tayce could feel the calm authority of both judges before her, making words freeze on her tongue. It only went on for a minute or two, but Tayce was left feeling as if she should have prepared more.

Oh well. What’s done is done.

The ingredients for her biscuits were mixing slowly in the KitchenAid, the gentle whirr of the blades almost lulling Tayce to sleep as she sipped her cup of tea, before she took out the ball of shortbread dough and rolled it out to cut into biscuits.

“Your accent is so nice.”

Tayce looked up from her biscuits, to see the woman from Nottingham had come over, tucking her hair behind her ear, leaving her hand resting at the back of her neck to play absently with the strings of her apron. Up close, the dimple in her cheek was emphasised as a shy smile twitched at the corners of her mouth.

“Thank you!” Tayce stood to her full height. “This place doesn’t look like Barry Island yet but give it some time!” She leaned against the workbench, tossing her hair away from her shoulders.

“My accent is … well, it’s just … northern,” she continued with a giggle. “I’m Aurora, by the way. I’m so bad at names, I’m sorry, you’ve probably already said yours!”

“Don’t worry, I am too. I’m Tayce. And if I forget your name, well - yeah, same.”

Aurora’s gaze lingered half a second too long as she tested the name on her tongue.

“Tayce.” Her smile widened. “Nice to meet you.”

——

Tayce was terrible at names. She had no idea how she was going to remember who all eleven of these other people were, especially as one of them would be going every week - the pool of people getting smaller and smaller until Tayce would be remaining with whoever else was any good out of these lot.

As the day went on, she started to pick them up.

She had to learn Asttina’s for one, because Asttina seemed to know everyone’s name from the word go. Asttina was one of the two Londoners at the front, and was the only one of the group who had made a deliberate effort to come round to all their workbenches to formally introduce herself during the bake itself, her demeanour confident but her handshake gentle and light as air.

“Nice to meet you, Tayce,” she’d said, with a cool smile that reminded Tayce of a Miss World competition. “Looking forward to tasting all your bakes!”

She knew Pip’s name too, on the bench just behind Asttina, as she’d turned up in the tent wearing elf ears, claiming they were for luck. Everyone had been staring at her workbench, where she’d positioned a tiny blue handbag with a red circle in the middle, saying she took it with her wherever she went.

“I had a sesh with a psychic,” Pip explained to them all as a group of them crowded round her. “She’s a bit of a local celeb in Liverpool, Psychic Sally they call her, but - anyway, she told me to look for a sign in blue and red, said it was from me great-grandpa - and the same day I walked past one of those handbag shops on Paradise Street and there it was, in the window, 70% off!”

“Definitely couldn’t have been a coincidence, Pippa,” Tayce grinned, and Pip shook her head in agreement, but she had a mischievous glint in her eye and Tayce wasn’t entirely sure how serious she was about the whole affair.

Ellie’s name too had become familiar, because of the amount of times the show’s medics would groan it when she managed to hurt herself on something that episode. Ellie herself had been quiet most of the day, seemingly a little shy and evidently the youngest in the room; but she’d bounced on the balls of her feet at meeting Matt Lucas, garbling something about her and her brother doing all the impersonations as kids.

The soft-spoken woman in front of Tayce was called Cherry, and Tayce had found that out because she’d pointed it out to everyone when she put cherry flavouring in her biscuits.

“Does that actually, y’know, work as a flavour?” Tia had asked her when she was explaining it to them.

Tia was another name that Tayce knew, mainly because the woman was so tall and striking. She looked like she’d come straight off a catwalk and wandered into the Bake Off tent by complete accident on her way to London Fashion Week, happening to become covered in flour in the process.

Cherry had huffed. “I don’t know, but you eat cherry-flavoured things all the time! What could go wrong with putting it in biscuits?”

Tia grimaced. “Wait. Have you … never put cherry flavouring in biscuits before? Didn’t you practise at home?”

Tayce couldn’t help but feel a twinge of mirth as she watched Cherry chew her tongue, her cheeks flushing, but her jaw set obstinately. “I know what I’m doing. I can do this.”

“You haven’t even practised this bake? Okay. So how late do the trains run from here to Newcastle?” Tayce had asked Cherry, and Aurora had doubled over in wheezing laughter as Cherry had folded her arms.

“Darlington. Darlington, not Newcastle. And there’s been trains there for nearly two hundred years, love.”

That had just made Aurora laugh harder, clutching her stomach and shaking in silent giggles, leaning on Tayce as Tayce had led her back to her workbench and let her wipe the tears from her eyes before continuing with her biscuit dough.

That was the most important thing Tayce had learned so far in the tent. The woman from Nottingham opposite her was Aurora, and Aurora lit up the whole bench.

When the judges had stood with her earlier, she’d cooed about how much she adored baking everything for all her family - making fairy cakes for charity bakes for work, birthday cakes for her family, tipsy cakes for her best friends for their birthdays, or anniversaries, or whenever they were just feeling crap.

From the smile that she couldn’t hold back, Tayce knew that Aurora was the only person in the room who meant it when she said that she loved baking.

——

“One hour break, folks, and then filming starts for Technical, okay?”

The first bake was over, and Tayce’s shortbread biscuits shaped like dragons had gone down pretty well with the judges. She wasn’t sure if she’d had the best feedback, her nerves kicking in and blocking out most of the other contestants’ comments; but she thought she’d done enough for this round at least.

One of the producers herded them like sheep - or maybe cats, judging by how Ginny had gone chasing after a squirrel they’d seen - back into Norton Hall where they were all staying for the weekends while filming was happening. It was a huge, Georgian manor mouse with ceilings touching the clouds, far more halls than were necessary, and so many excessive bedrooms that each contestant had a room each.

Tayce had half-expected four-poster regal luxury as she’d opened the door to her own, twice the size of her room in her flat; but no such luck - it was furnished sparingly, and all the beds were normal. A small double, she noted. Not that she was likely to get lucky with these master bakers, but a woman could dream.

The floorboards creaked as she crossed the room and flopped backwards onto the bed, gazing at the ceiling, the elation sending a shiver through her skin as she realised again that she had made it to Bake Off.

The Bake Off!

They weren’t meant to change clothes between takes unless they’d made a huge mess with the food, so Tayce just retouched her eyeliner and went back down to the communal room, where most of them had gathered back in the group, polite conversations carrying on amongst relative strangers as they sampled each others’ biscuits.

What a surreal scene.

A group of almost strangers, half of their names unfamiliar, and she was meant to discuss baking with them all.

“Alright, babs?” She heard someone pushing a plate in front of her. “My name’s Ginny, Ginny Lemon, and if you don’t like lemon, well - just skip my biccies, alright love?”

“No, lemon is great,” Tayce forced a smile, taking one of Ginny’s biscuits. “Thanks hun.”

“You’re welcome! Which ones did you make - wait, I remember, the Welsh dragons?”

“Now how did you guess that one?” Tayce raised an eyebrow at them. “My mum’s idea, she was like, do it for the Welsh! So of course she found a dragon-shaped cookie cutter from somewhere. One of the tourist shops in Cardiff. Tourists love dragon biscuits apparently.”

“Oh I know love, I know - speaking of weird biscuits, have you ever tried a Worcester sauce biscuit? I don’t recommend it if you haven’t, but have you?” Ginny shook their head, tutting. “Tastes like shit! Waste of biscuit. Waste of Worcester sauce too, though. Anyway, Pip’s looking lonely without me. Nice to see you!”

And Ginny fled from Tayce’s arm, scurrying back over to Pip. Tayce tasted the biscuit, bracing herself for Worcester sauce, blinking with surprise to find it was actually pretty good, the lemon flavour really tasty, and finding she wanted another.

Most of the rest of the biscuits were arranged on a bench at the back. Tayce picked up another of her own and went down the line, eager to see which had depleted the most.

Gravestone biscuits were the biggest shocker for her - two different sets of biscuits were there, iced to resemble gravestones, mostly untouched - but Tayce politely picked up the better-looking of the two and found a lovely chilli kick to it when she tasted. But gravestones weren’t the only common theme - two different rose patterns were there, one set iced in different shades of pink, and the other with a deep red icing. The pink roses were almost all gone, and Tayce took the second-to-last one, enjoying the raspberry flavour, and grabbing one of the other roses to go.

Tayce peered around the room at the other contestants from her vantage point at the table. Most of them had dropped into twos and threes - with twelve people it was bound to happen - chatting amongst themselves, quietly and politely for the most part, although the two Scottish women in one corner were laughing as if they’d known each other for years.

Eventually, she joined Aurora, who was talking to someone whose white-blonde hair and pencil-thin eyebrows looked very familiar …

“Joe Black,” she said, extending a heavily-tattooed hand to Tayce, whose stomach flipped upon hearing the name.

“You’re - on Instagram, that woman -“

“My internet infamy precedes me, but in that case I hope so too do my bakes, and of course my sense of fun.” Joe’s voice was theatrical, her gestures affected; but her smile was warm, and Cherry looked as enamoured with her as Tayce was feeling.

“And who wins the biscuit version of the wars of the roses?” Joe continued, pointing down at the two rose-shaped iced biscuits on Tayce’s plate. “Lawrence, or Veronica? I must say, the amount that Veronica worried about her own bake, that time probably could have been spent thinking up a better biscuit flavour than rosewater, don’t you agree?”

Tayce glanced at Veronica’s biscuit, then up at Aurora. “Does it taste that bad?”

But before Aurora could answer, they were interrupted by “Alright, babes! How’s it hanging?”

The woman joining them had rich violet hair scraped off her face into a bun at the crown of her head, and an intense green stare. Tayce took the hand that was extended to her, finding a firmer handshake than Asttina’s, trying to follow the stream of words from this woman’s mouth.

“I’m Lauren, but you might as well call me Lawrence, that’s all Ellie’s been calling me all day, thinks she’s fucking hilarious, and I’ve not really met any of you yet because, you know,” Lawrence paused for breath, waving her hands, “baking contest, ooh I’m not here to make friends, et cetera, but now that we’re all here and we’re not baking right now, I thought I’d better find out who everyone is! Are you the one who made the dragon biccies?”

“That’s me, baby!” Tayce grinned. “Bore da, bitches!”

“See, I knew you were Welsh, and there Ellie was trying to convince me the dragon biccies were by someone who just really liked Puff the Magic Dragon, she owes me a tenner now - and you’re - oh wait, I know you!” Lawrence wagged her finger at Joe, whose expression didn’t change apart from the slow blink. “That Instagram video!”

Joe fixed Lawrence with a stare. “Yes, that Instagram video; I know that precedes me, but I hope by the end of this competition that can be eclipsed by my culinary skills.” Her voice still kept the throaty drawl, but Tayce was starting to sense her irritation at the association.

Cherry had already offered her hand to shake, and Lawrence took it. “Alright, I remember your name, because you put it in your biccies as flavouring! Where’re you from, do they grow cherries there?”

“No - I’m from Darlington.”

Lawrence blinked, frowning. “Darlington, near Sweetie-shire is that?”

“No, it’s near -“

“I’m joking babes, I’m joking! I know it’s - hey, hey Ellie!” Lawrence stopped to shout to Ellie, who had evidently reappeared. “Els! It’s not Puff the Magic Dragon! Where’s my tenner? Hey!” And she was gone in an instant, Tayce turning to watch her chase Ellie as she scurried out.

“Anyway,” Joe continued, motioning to Tayce’s plate and one of the gravestone biscuits, “I’m so glad you’re enjoying mine! I know my sense of humour is a little … ah, morbid, but I didn’t count on being one of two people with this bake, let me tell you that!”

Joe glanced over to the left out the sides of her eyes; Tayce followed her gaze to Pip, oblivious, making herself a cup of tea.

“She didn’t - like, you don’t think she -“

“Oh, no, not in a month of Sundays! But it’s a strange little coincidence, isn’t it? The viewers will love the drama!”

Joe opened her mouth wide to let out a violent cackle, a sound that might have made a shiver glide down Tayce’s spine if she hadn’t been mid-biscuit.

——

Technical: 8 Wagon Wheels

The Technical challenge was the first time Tayce felt her nerves return in a rush.

Everyone had identical ingredients and an identical recipe, but nothing prepared any of them for whipping the gingham cloth from them all and flipping the instructions over. Tayce ran her pencil down them, her head spinning.

On the first read, she recalled nothing.

Focus.

She took one steadying breath, letting go of as many nerves as she could, and then ran her pencil back down the list, jotting down timings and a couple of notes. They only had an hour and a half; precision was key.

On her right, Aurora was fidgeting with her apron, twisting her hair around her finger, before grabbing as many bowls as she could from the drawers and setting them all down ready.

It almost felt like more pressure, rather than less, having no judges in the room - just Matt and Noel, and they couldn’t really interact with the bakers at this point, mostly just talking amongst each other and having to film occasional silly quips for the television interludes.

You’re not gonna get this finished if you keep looking at Matt and Noel!

So Tayce mentally blocked out everything and anything around her, not taking her eyes off her workbench. Instructions, ingredients, whisk, repeat. Oven, timers, filling, cooling, done.

She barely remembered anything else that happened in the room.

As she put the last wagon wheel on the tray to take to the front, she wiped her brow, took a swig of tea, and then heard the immortal lines.

“Bakers! You have one minute to go!”

Tayce looked around the room. Tia, three desks ahead, was looking flustered, covered in flour from head to toe - a difficult feat when you were six feet tall - and Veronica, just behind her, was rounding the corner to help her move the biscuits over to the tray one by one as she spread on the jam and marshmallow fluff. Bimini, who Tayce was sure had finished about ten minutes earlier than everyone else, was doing the same thing for Asttina, leaning over her workbench and talking soothingly to her as they both moved biscuits around.

On the other side, Ginny was rubbing Pip’s back, trying to help her load wagon wheels onto the tray but only succeeding in knocking the handbag to the ground. Ellie broke two of her wagon wheels by dropping a palette knife on them, her squeak causing Lawrence to turn from her bench and put her hands on her hips.

But Tayce felt an unexpected wave of relief when she saw Aurora finishing her own biscuits right on schedule, stepping back with a sigh, rolling her head and her eyes to the ceiling.

They had to bring the biscuits to the front table, and put them behind their respective photographs for blind judging. Looking at the other biscuits on the bench, Tayce nodded to herself in satisfaction. She definitely wasn’t the worst. The photos were all a blur, but there was definitely one disaster, chocolate and marshmallow oozing; Ellie’s broken biscuits; and another tray with a biscuit missing.

It was easy to breathe a sigh of relief for herself.

“Just get into any order,” the producer said, pointing to the stools that had been set in front of the table, “but don’t sit directly behind your photo. Otherwise it just looks obvious.”

Tayce’s biscuits were second from the right, so she bunched towards the left, and found herself between Aurora and Joe. Joe had pretended to trip over her feet while carrying her own biscuits up, cackling gleefully at Veronica’s pained expression as she watched. Veronica, mercifully, had sat as far from Joe as she could.

Aurora was breathing rapidly next to her, and Tayce gave her a nudge with her knee.

“Chill girl! Relax! It will be fine!”

Aurora nodded, but said nothing, focusing on trying to breathe at a normal rate once again. Tayce could practically hear her heart hammering. She nudged her again playfully, and Aurora nudged her back, taking a deep breath out and seeming to calm from then.

Once Prue and Paul were back, Tayce grew a little sleepy. The judging went on for much longer than on telly, and tent was hot from all the baking and warm bodies, plus Aurora’s knee jogging rhythmically was enough to make her feel a little drowsy. Her biscuits were second to last, and Tayce wasn’t really focusing on any of the other critiques as they went down the line, not even those of the two women on either side of her.

She hated tents. They reminded her of camping. This one wasn’t like any of the camping tents, propped by firm wooden walls and decorations but it still reminded her of trips to the Gower when she was at primary school. And thinking of the Gower made her think of day-tripping to Tenby, where the air was hazy with salt and fresh fish, and the sea was far too cold as they skimmed stones, watching them bounce once, twice, three times …

A nudge at her side from Aurora brought her down from her reverie; blinking, Tayce saw the judges had reached the biscuits behind her photo, looking up expectantly to see who would claim them.

Oh, yeah. It’s the Technical, and I’m here to be judged.

She raised her hand, realising that she’d been in a dream so long that she didn’t even know what place the judges had called her for.

“Tayce - good flavour, biscuits had a good crunch, and the chocolate has set well; it just wasn’t quite filled enough.”

Nodding and smiling, she waited for them to move on to the next person before she leaned over towards Aurora, muttering from the corner of her mouth “Where did they put me again?”

But before Aurora could answer, Paul spoke up. “And in second place, we have -“

“You came third, you bitch!” Aurora whispered, her mouth open in awe, and she looped her hand into Tayce’s and squeezed. “How do you do it? You always look so put-together! Not like - Miss Second-Place down there.”

Tayce glanced at Veronica, right at the end of the line of bakers on their stools, whose hand was raised to claim second place. She was nodding earnestly at the praise, but she still wasn’t smiling, her lips tight and her other hand still quivering a little in her lap.

“That means that first place goes to - Asttina!”

But Aurora hadn’t let go of Tayce’s hand, and Tayce was suddenly more aware of that contact than whoever the winner was, even as she slowly drew her hand away for the polite applause that followed.

“Where did you come?” Tayce asked her in a whisper.

“Seventh. Not great. I over-baked them a little bit,” Aurora shrugged. “I’m never gonna be good at technical.”

——

“Congrats on coming top of Technical!” Tia clapped Asttina on the back as they came back into Norton Hall, and Asttina responded with her winning smile.

“Thanks, babe. I thought you all deserved a taste of what I can do!”

There was a collective amused murmur around the other bakers at Asttina’s slightly smug tone. Tayce grinned, staying silent for now, wondering what the others would have to say to that.

“Oh, there’s more to come, is there?” Tia continued.

“I should hope so.” Asttina licked her lips. “From all of you lot as well.”

“There’s no need to be cocky,” Veronica said, the first time any of them had really heard her speak. Veronica was tiny, with blonde hair and a nasal voice that was louder than any of them had expected; most likely feeling the sting of coming second.

Asttina shook her hair back. “I’m not cocky, Veronica, I just know what I can do. Read the CV, it’s all there! If you want to win stuff, you need to know yourself. Do you want to win?”

“Does the Pope shit in the woods?” Veronica retorted.

It was Tia’s snort of laughter that started them all off, diffusing the vague tension creeping into the room. Asttina’s laugh was only drowned out by Veronica’s as she realised what she’d said.

“Is the Pope a Catholic, does a bear shit in the woods … I know, I know. I mean, yeah, I definitely do want to win.”

Asttina shrugged. “Then there’s no point being modest about what you can do. Let your bakes do the talking!”

One of the producers came in at that moment, motioning for them all to come round, and they all bunched together.

“Alright folks, the day’s filming is done, we’ll begin tomorrow at nine sharp for the Showstopper challenges. Until then you’re free to relax and have a nice time - please don’t go into any areas marked as Private, and no excessive drinking, but otherwise, have a good night!”

“Thank you!” They chorused, clapping for some unknown reason, as some of the staff rounded up the leftover biscuits and cleared them away.

“The filming crew get them,” Veronica explained to Tia, “I asked earlier what happened to them all because I knew we wouldn’t be able to eat them all.”

“You know what this means?” Cherry said, addressing them all from on top of one of the sofas. “This is the last evening we’ll all be together. Let’s all cheers to the cast of GBBO!”

She pulled a bottle of something from her bag, and the rest of them grabbed a mug each, sharing out the gin Cherry had brought, and bringing all their drinks together in cheers.

——

Showstopper: A gingerbread sculpture of a place that makes you nostalgic.

The Showstopper was about as broad as you could get. Everyone seemed to have something different in mind. Bimini and Asttina, on the two front benches, looked as poised and confident as they had all the previous day; and Asttina, buoyed by her Technical challenge win, puffed her chest in pride.

Tayce had practised her gingerbread over and over, but nothing prepared any of them for being in the tent, where the pastel colours and the novelty of the bright, friendly conversations started to switch to a competitive edge.

Especially after the Technical, where they had all been ranked. Having a number against your name now, combined with a vague grade against the Signature challenge, meant the Showstopper was the be-all and end-all for some of them.

That was it Tayce thought to herself, as she watched Aurora’s grim determination pass her face every second.

And she wasn’t the only one.

Cherry, on the workbench in front of her, had come sixth; but she’d been much quieter all morning, concentrating on reading and re-reading her instructions, tapping her pencil against her chin and growling frustratedly every now and then.

Ellie, wearing a pair or Pip’s elf ears, was doing even worse. Being ranked eleventh had done very little to ease the nerves she had displayed the day before, and her morning had already started with another blue plaster on yet another finger.

But Aurora was the only person Tayce was concentrating on. Something about the way she’d held her hand … and Tayce was far too quick to let her mind run away without her, thinking it meant anything, when obviously it probably didn’t.

“What are you doing?” Tayce called to Aurora over the chatter of everyone else around the room; but Aurora didn’t reply, her tongue running over her lips as she surveyed the mess that was the butter and sugar mix before her.

“Aurora?” She asked, making her way to stand by her behind the bench.

Aurora was still silent, but the noise from the bowls and KitchenAid she was using spoke volumes for her without her needing to say a word.

“D’you want a cup of tea?” Tayce asked her eventually, waiting for the curt nod from Aurora before sprinting to the tea station, in a tent outside.

When she got back, Aurora had moved up to Ellie’s workbench, and even though her back was to Tayce, she could see her shoulders shaking and Ellie’s hand rubbing her back, before offering her a can of the Monster she always had to have, the label covered in masking tape to escape product placement.

Tayce approached them both to comfort Aurora too, but as she did, cameras zoomed in on all three of them. Aurora pushed them both away and walked out of the tent, covering her face.

Ellie looked from the camera to Tayce and then back again, confused more than anything, and Lawrence, turning from her bench, looked back at them all with a frown.

“What’s going on here? Is she alright?” Lawrence pointed to Aurora, who was busy wiping her tears away in the far corner, with Matt Lucas at her side and a camera in her face.

“No,” Tayce muttered, “and she won’t be while there’s a lens on her.”

After that, Tayce kept half an eye on Aurora as she baked. She mostly ignored the cameramen as they hurried around the tent, taking stock footage of them cutting gingerbread shapes, using their ovens, and decorating, but Tayce purposely kept her mouth tightly closed, and her expression firmly neutral.

As Noel called for ten minutes remaining, Tayce was finishing the detailing of the roof of the stadium. The band were meant to be playing biscuit instruments and there was meant to be a crowd, but Tayce had settled for calling it a backstage pass moment, where VIPs could meet them, and just made models of herself and her friends.

“Time is up! Bakers, step away from your bakes!”

Noel called time, and Tayce took a step back to properly admire her finished product - and really, she was blown away by her own bake. The gingerbread houses she’d made in practise had gone alright, but this one, even in the pressure cooker environment of the tent, had gone almost perfectly, down to the timing of the bakes.

“Wow,” Tayce whispered to herself, “week one is done!”

She took a few seconds to admire everyone else’s in the tent. Some were much better than others. Joe’s looked a little strange - she’d meant to do a wedding scene with the gingerbread church, but the roof was crooked, and the gravestones falling over, not supported by the sticky sugar mixture they’d all used as adhesive. Cherry’s ambitious building was incomplete, and Tayce didn’t even know what it was meant to be.

But Asttina’s was incredible - a beautiful beach scene with a model of a beach hut and even a Ferris wheel. Ellie’s technical slip up was definitely repaired by the pub she’d built, adding fondant banners inside and making the dull gingerbread colours come alive with her imaginative take on the icing outside; while Lawrence had made a theatre, melting jelly babies to create beautiful stained glass in the windows, something Tayce kicked herself for not thinking of.

They all had a chance to leave the tent for a break, to sit outside in the shelter, and to have a breather before the actual judging of the bakes was done.

“I don’t envy the judges,” Joe said, her drawling voice awed, as she took in all of the gingerbread houses from their vantage point outside the tent. “They definitely have their work cut out for them, don’t they?”

“Everyone did amazing,” Aurora nodded, “it’s just a case of who did less amazing. D’you reckon they’ll just take this into account, or the whole weekend?”

Tayce didn’t know why she was worrying. Aurora had come middle of the pack in technical, but had been praised for her Signature, and her gingerbread house - modelled on her Nan’s, she had said - was so prim and dainty that Tayce knew the judges were going to eat it up, and not only literally.

“It won’t be you, chillax!” Tayce reached to rub her hand.

“Who d’you reckon it will be then?”

“Well, they tend to take into account the numbers assigned at the Technical challenge, and the Signature comments, to make the first analysis, at least,” Joe chuckled, “that’s what we see on the television. Who were the bottom three for Technical? I was tenth, Ellie was eleventh, who was twelfth again?”

“It’s - erm,” Aurora pointed, but the name escaped her for a second. “Tia. Tia was twelfth.”

“It’s probably between the three of us, then,” Joe said brightly, “unless something goes … horribly wrong to one of the Showstoppers. And how likely is that?”

As they looked through the panels of the tent, one of the gingerbread houses collapsed into pieces onto the tray it was set on.

Tayce glanced around the other eleven bakers to see whose it was.

One of the bakers had her head in her hands, shoulders tensed, while the two people on either side of her hugged her tightly.

——

“Seriously, Joe, how did you make that happen?” Aurora’s voice was hushed, tense, after the award for Star Baker and the first elimination had taken place.

Joe’s eyes widened as she shook her head. “I don’t quite know - maybe it was just something, spoken into the universe, made to happen.”

“Or maybe it was just gravity and shitty caramelised sugar sticking it all together,” Tayce added.

“Yes,” Joe replied, “or that too.”

Joe, Ellie and Tia had all survived their stint in the bottom at Technical - but Pip, who had come ninth in Technical, and whose Signature had received mediocre feedback, had laughed behind gritted teeth at presenting her collapsed gingerbread house - “More of an Ikea house,” Paul had commented cheerily - which had ultimately turned out to be too hard to bite into and had sealed her fate. Not even the lucky elf ears saved her from the first elimination.

“I was so sure I was going home this week,” Aurora sighed later that night, back at Norton Hall, where everyone had eaten so much of each others’ gingerbread houses that they all felt ill.

“You wouldn’t have, yours was good!” Tayce rubbed her arm. “Relax! It’s done now. Just focus on next week instead.”

“And I can’t believe Prue said she’d like to try a bit of carpet when they were looking at Ellie’s pub,” Aurora said, shaking her head. “Did anyone else catch that?”

“Yeah, I did!” Tayce sniggered. “They’re so innocent! This is just gonna be a load of innuendos all season, isn’t it? Imagine what they’re gonna say for next week too.”

“Oh, yeah. It’s cake week, isn’t it?” Aurora seemed to perk up. “That’s a bit more my comfort zone.”

Suddenly the door opened, and Asttina was led back inside the area by the cameraman and a producer. Everyone broke into applause - this time genuine, not the muted, polite sound that had echoed round the tent in the technical. Asttina had just given her winner’s interview and called her family, and now wore the Star Baker badge proudly on the lapel of her jacket, her grin wider than the Cheshire Cat’s.

“How did your mum react when you said you were Star Baker this week?” Bimini asked her.

Asttina smiled the warmest smile any of them had seen all weekend from her at the mention of her family. “They screamed so loud that you probably all heard it in here. My mum was falling off the sofa, my dad was waving a wooden spoon, my brother was banging on the floor with his feet - oh, it was great.”

“Well-deserved, babes,” Bimini nodded, and Asttina pulled them in for a hug.

Everyone else was clamouring around Asttina, congratulating her on her Star Baker win this week and admiring the badge she’d won - biscuit-shaped, or at least cookie-shaped - but Tayce hung back, exchanging a glance with Aurora, a glint in her eye; and both of them knew what the other was thinking.

Let’s not cross Joe Black. She might make our Showstoppers crumble.

——

ELEVEN BAKERS REMAIN

[jasper-dracona]

Thought:

We’ve seen Castiel fight quite a bit, he’s actually decent at it, and he has plenty of cool abilities that we see him use like once and never again. He can shoot lightning down from the sky, twist knives that he’s not touching, and he’s obviously pretty good with a dagger/knife because Angel Blades. So, here’s my Supernatural Better Ending idea.

So, after the confession Dean and Sam fight like hell to get Cas back. But, they make a rule: No more of this self-sacrifice garbage. It always gets us into more trouble than we were in before, and it hurts us all. So, we get Cas back by any means necessary, except that. Spells, trickery, killing demons, angels, reapers, all powerful creatures we’ve never even heard of, whatever, just not ourselves.

And they succeed!! It was... oooohhh my god it was fucking hard. The boys need a fucking nap.

After said nap, they sit down and discuss what they all want, and what they’re gonna do next.

Dean says that hunting is really the only thing he’s ever known, it’s what he does best. Sam got a year off to think and feel what living in the real world is like, but Dean’s never really done that, and he doesn’t really want to. He likes kicking in the door of abandoned factories and killing whatever ghoul or ghost is traumatizing or killing the local townspeople.

Sam says that he’s really tired, even after that nap. He wants to live a normal life, and he feels like he’s got the chance because for once it feels like the world isn’t hunting them down, or that he needs to go hunt someone else down to go save them. He’s got a knack for fixing things, for making things work and tick, and well... there’s this girl... But, there will always be this little voice in the back of my head saying that there’s lives to be saved, there’s ghosts to be killed, so maybe I can still help out?

Cas says, he’s not really sure what he wants, other than to be with them (it goes unsaid but they all know he has a uhhh preference if he “must” choose between them)

And Dean pipes up that, well “we’ve seen you fight Cas and you’re pretty good at it, a bit stiff” Sam snickers a bit “but, uh, you can handle yourself quite well.” He snickers again. “You can use an Angel Blade, I’ve seen you shoot lightning down from the sky in the past. Why don’t you come with me on my monster hunting trips?”

“Would I have to learn how to use a gun?”

“It might be good to know, but there’s other ways of fighting that work almost as well.”

“Alright, I... like the sound of that” Cas says, as he cracks a little bit of a side-smile.

Dean, on a bit of a roll, says “and Sam, you’ve always been more partial to research anyway, would you wanna be our...” he pauses for a moment, because this is an emotionally charged title he’s about to offer Sam, and a lot of memories and feelings come flooding back. He smiles warmly and with pride, but undertones of sorrow creep in. “Our new Bobby? I mean, like, part-time since you want a mostly normal life, right?”

Sam, seeming a bit taken aback by this proposition “d- uh- y-yeah! I’d- I’d be glad to do that! Oh and uh, I was thinking, since I’m good at fixing things and making things work, well, I could maybe design you two some new tools. I mean, we’ve got salt pellets for the shotgun and iron tools, and silver bullets, but there’s gotta be other ways to further simplify those kinds of techniques, make them more efficient.”

Dean face lowers a bit and he seems... sceptical. He’s always been one for tradition, “if ain’t broke don’t fix it” is a very old phrase and I think he’s a fan.

“Of course, never to the point where hunting would be un-fun. The danger is part of it! But, I wanna keep the number of hits you- two- (he pauses and gestures to Cas, getting used to this new dynamic) take before you kill whatever you’re hunting to a minimum, right?”

Cas, having been just kind of standing, listening mostly in silence until now, says “yes that would be good. Also, since the main weapon I use is an Angel Blade, would it be possible for us to get other, similarly styled blades for me to use? Because, as powerful as an Angel Blade is, it only kills some supernatural beings other than demons and angels.”

“Uh, yeah I’m sure we could get you that. I don’t think I could make it but I can definitely look into it.”

And then they go, they get right into a decent rhythm (I’m not technically caught up so the details of what’s going on with Sam are going to be lacking.) Sam goes and talks to his girl, tells her that he’s going to be living a mostly normal life from now on, just with a bit of research and a bit of tinkering. He gets a job as the local plumber, but also does work on cars, on electrical things. He’s kinda known around town as the fix-it guy. If you’ve got a problem or somethings broken, he’s a pretty safe bet. In his off time he designs this heavy cloth rope that’s been soaked in salt-brine and then dried, leaving it full of salt, so that you can more easily encircle a room with it. It works best for ghosts because they’re mostly incorporeal. He designs a little box, kind of like a craft supplies box, with a series of small tools and materials in each spot. Gold, silver, copper, a coin of each, a piece of iron, and all sorts of other little pieces of equipment and ingredients.

We jump to Cas and Dean, in The Car, having a laugh when Dean’s phone rings. Sam says he’s got a lead and that he has some stuff he wants them to try out while they’re there. He gives them the rundown and say he’ll mail the package to the local shitty motel.

Normal Supernatural episode stuff happens, they follow the lead, get the package, find the house, and get to work. And we get to see Dean and Cas dance-fight their way through like 12 ghosts. They flow around the room with such synchronicity, despite the difference in pace between their weapons of choice, shotgun and throwing daggers. A beautiful sweeping shot around the room of them annihilating ghost after ghost after ghost. The only interruption being that Dean takes just a second too long reloading and gets scratched across his left cheek. Cas quite promptly stabs that ghost in the back, and the room falls silent.

“I think we got them all.” Cas says, without looking around the room, eyes fixed on Dean.

“Thanks, Cas” Dean says in a near-whisper

“No worries. Let’s go get that patched up.”

Cut to Dean sitting on the edge of the trunk, with Cas patching up his cut. Can’t Cas heal people? Well... they prefer this ritual to magic-y insta healing, it’s not as fun. Cas will make sure it won’t scar, however. Cas finishes bandaging him up, and makes one more good press on it to smooth it out, leaving his hand gingerly on Dean’s cheek.

“There we go, all cleaned up.” He says, smiling and looking over Dean’s face once more, just to make sure that’s the only scratch, or is he looking for more personal reasons? Maybe both?

Dean was kinda looking off in the distance while Cas patched him up, but now he looks right into his eyes. He grabs onto Cas’s caressing hand gently, smiles ever-so softly and leans in and kisses him. It is the exact kind of kiss you would expect from Dean Winchester, if any kiss could be described as “gruff”, this would be it.

They both let go after a long moment, Cas’s eyes are full of so much: shock, confusion, excitement, joy, and for a split second, fear, thinking he might just get sent back to turbo hell the empty.

Dean however, simply has a cheeky grin on his face with a touch of embarrassment. “Y’know... we haven’t had a chance to talk much since you got back.”

“Uh- Dean- I...” it looks as though Cas’s mind is going about a trillion miles a second.

Dean revels in his love’s adorable awkwardness, that often shines through even if he isn’t the only one in his vessel, even if he hasn’t spoken, damn he’s the cutest. “I wish I coulda done that sooner. I just... felt I wasn’t ready. That one had to be 100% on my terms.”

Cas wants to say something, anything, but just- there’s so much happening in his brain right now he can’t- he just- ah! This is amazing but he just cannot get any words out.

“Hey uhh, you good there buddy? Did I short-circuit you?”

“I think maybe, yeah!” Cas finally says with a chortle and this expression of relief and excitement and at least a little bit of embarrassment.

We cut to the next scene, back at Sam’s house, giving reviews and suggestions about his inventions.

“Okay okay, I can probably fix that by adjusting the drying time based on the humidity, and you’ll probably need to keep it in an air tight container from now on.”

“Yeah I was uhh... a little distracted when we put it away last. Sorry about that.”

“It’s alright Cas, it’s good to know that proper storage matters for this one.”

Suddenly, a bunch of pinging comes from Sam’s computer.

“What’s that?” asks the ever-paranoid Dean.

“I set up a series of notifications on my computer to go off if it found any news article that had a series of key words. This seems like a big one, vampires most likely, telling by the key words it found. You guys down?”

“Always.” They say, in tandom. Somewhat surprised, they glance at eachother a moment.

Sam raises his eyebrows. His face then says the word “anyways” without him making a sound.

“The article says it happened in [town], [state]. A man was killed in the...” Cas and Dean step around the desk and Dean leans in to look at the laptop, both hands on the desk, Cas leans in slightly and looks intently as well. They begin to discuss, likely speculating what type of vampire and what to do as the camera pans back and up in an arc as Sam’s voice fades, Carry On Wayward Son begins to play (because it has to) and it fades to black.

(Honestly wanted to write that last scene as if it was far later, well after the kiss, so that I could mention an Easter egg, that would be for eagle eyed viewers if this was an actual episode, where Cas and Dean both had wedding bands. Couldn’t figure out how to make it work though, and not seems like a big, weird jump.)

[davidobitch]

N.Y. Meets L.A.| Jeff Wittek

(A/N: I’m honestly not sure how I feel about this. but oh well it is what it is. enjoy!)

“I’m so happy I’m finally here!” You say as Jeff helps you put your luggage in his car. You were visiting L.A. for a week since Jeff has been bugging you since the day he moved to come see him. You’ve been best friends since High School so of course you missed him enough to jump on the offer to stay with him.

“I’m surprised you actually came. You’ve been putting it off since I moved here,” Jeff replied with a smile. You rolled your eyes and got in the car.

“I wasn’t putting it off, I just wasn’t ever able to get off of work,” You shrugged your shoulders, semi telling the truth. It’s true that you weren’t able to get off, but you never really put much effort into requesting the days. You were scared to meet Jeff’s other friends. You weren’t jealous, you just knew how completely different everything is in California.

You’ve seen David’s videos and from the looks of it, they get ten times crazier than yours and Jeff’s friend group ever got. 

From the corner of your eye, you could see Jeff raise his eyebrows as he knows something else was the reason why. You silently thanked him as he changed the subject. He informed you of tonight's plans before arriving at his place.

It was still pretty early in the day so you decided to take your time getting ready while Jeff left to film with his friends. You didn’t mind spending the time alone after a long day of flying and layovers.

Around 6:30 you got a text from Jeff, telling you that he was on his way back over with David to pick you up. You hurried around the room, gathering all your essentials before fixing your makeup before they got here. Not even 15 minutes later, Jeff walks through the door with David trailing behind him.

“Oh good, you’re ready,” Jeff says before introducing you to his other best friend.

“It’s cool to finally meet you,” David says as he put his hand for you to shake, “He’s been talking about this nonstop for the past month I swear.” He lets out that famous David laugh before Jeff hits his chest, telling him to shut up.

You giggled, “Wow I’m surprised Jeff actually talked about a hometown friend. I was convinced he forgot I existed.” You earned another laugh from David, causing Jeff to throw his hands in the air.

“I’m sorry is this attack Jeff Wittek day or something?” Jeff replies, putting his hands on his hips. “Can we get this show on the road before I get attacked even more?”

You follow David out the door with Jeff behind you, quickly locking it before catching up to you.

The ride to David’s consisted of him bombarding you with questions about yourself, your friendship with Jeff, and making sure you were okay with being on the vlogs.

You hands started to get clammy as you realized you were probably going to be introduced to all his other friends and would have to go through all these questions again.

Your thoughts were proven right. The second you walked through the door, everyone was asking you a million questions at once.

Jeff could sense you were getting overwhelmed with everything before stepping in, “How about we give her some space to breathe and then you guys could annoy her.”

You smiled up at him, silently thanking him for getting them to back down a little.

“Here come sit!” A tall red-headed girl said as she moved over on the couch, giving you space between her and another girl.

You took your spot in between them as Jeff sat on the floor across from you. He went down the row introducing you to everyone, giving you a little information about each friend.

Finally, giving everyone what they wanted, you opened up about Jeff’s high school self. Every story you told, you watched Jeff rolls his eyes or shake his head at you. Of course, he always had a counter argument about what happened, according to him.

An hour or so went by before David took over, “So how about we show (y/n) what it’s like to party with us?” The room was split between people being excited to go out and the rest joking about how bad of an idea that was.

All eyes landed on you, giving you the ultimate decision.

“Well I’m only here for a week, so why not!” You exclaimed, causing the room to cheer.

For the next couple hours everyone was downing shot after shot, buying drink after drink, giving David the content he needs. Eventually, everyone went off to do their own thing and left you alone at the bar while they filmed a bit. 

You felt someone’s presence sit on the chair next to you. You looked up at them to see if it was your friend only to find a stranger smiling at you. You politely smiled back and returned your attention back to your drink. 

After a couple minutes, the guy next to you finally spoke up, “So what’s a gorgeous girl like you sitting here all alone?”

You took a sip of your drink, pretending like you didn’t hear him. Except this only made him move closer to you. With his mouth right next to your ear, you could smell the alcohol seeping through his veins. “Is your boyfriend out there somewhere?”

You couldn’t help the face you were making, being overly disgusted with the smell coming from him.

“No,” You said sharply, moving over an inch, trying to get away. Just as you had enough, you started to get up from your seat to leave, only to be pulled back down.

“Where you going, baby? Your boyfriend’s not here right? Just stay and have some fun,” The man said, his hand trailing to your waist.

You opened your mouth to say something only to shut it quickly when you heard someone shout behind you.

“The fuck do you think you’re doing,” You turned around to see Jeff, who looked slightly angry, Todd, and Scott quickly walking in your direction.

You felt the guy’s hand grab you tighter, roughly pulling you into him. You tried to push away but his grip was too tight.

“Dude, let her go. She’s clearly not interested,” Todd said, almost stuttering over his words.

Todd took a step towards you causing the guy to stand to his feet. He finally let go of you and put his hands up, apparently ready to start a fight.

“Hey, let’s not cause a scene here,” Scott said as he moved to stand between the drunk and Todd. You could see he quickly regretted it as he had to dodge a swing.

“Yo what the fuck!” Jeff said, almost tackling the guy down.

Everyone around you finally seemed to notice what was going on and the bartenders called over security. You tried getting Jeff’s attention so you guys could leave, but when he turned his head a punch came at him.

Stepping back, Jeff’s hand covered his nose, blood being visible now.

If there’s one thing you were certain about when it came to Jeff, it was that he was never a violent person until someone else was violent first.

So, of course, Jeff threw a punch back causing everyone around him to move before they got his from crossfire.

Scott and Todd were quick to pull the guys off each other just in time for security to run over.

“You guys need to leave now!” One of them yelled as they were pulling you towards the exit. 

Just as the security guards threw out Jeff and the other guy, you saw David running behind you.

“Dude that was crazy!” He said, his camera panning over from you to the guys, “Jeff you looked fucking scary when you fight,” Dave laughed, making Jeff crack a smile.

“Some guy was being a creep with (y/n),” Jeff said, holding his shirt to his nose as he tried to stop the blood.

“Hey, I guess that’s what happens with New York meets L.A. We’re a different breed of girls,” You joked, making Jeff roll his eyes at you. He pulled you into a side hug and you quietly thanked him for stepping in before throwing yourself at Todd and Scott, thanking them as well.

Maybe Jeff’s L.A. friends weren’t as bad as you expected them to be.

[kittae]

Busan Beefcake

Pairing: Kim Taehyung x reader

Side characters: Min Yoongi

Summary: A drabble series where Taehyung is a successful artistic erotica actor but has to expand his areas of expertise in the rapidly evolving world of adult film. Lost and inexperienced in everything that doesn’t involve classy settings, flattering lighting and romantic scripts, he basically has to start from scratch to make it in the online porn community. As a highly demanded A-lister in that community, you take him under your wings (or better yet, between your legs).

Genre: Smut, fluff, a bit of comedy here and there. Maybe some angst, who knows.

words: 1335

A/N: A new rival enters the game!

« previous     —      next »

At nine thirty in the morning, the sun already gives you a heartfelt greeting by shining its rays down on you. You don’t greet it back, instead opting to hide behind your double sunglasses as you stumble out of your car with a disgruntled noise. If someone would ask you why you decided to drink so much the day before your first class, you wouldn’t have an answer for them. That ‘someone’ being Jey this morning, she’d made sure to make your life a living hell by making you a hangover smoothie –with the blender on the highest and loudest setting– at the ass crack of dawn. Just her way of paying you back for making her drag you home and up three flights of stairs while you clinged onto her like an outgrown koala.

To your surprise, you’re not the first one at the building this morning. A tall figure sporting blue hair and sunglasses,much like yours, awkwardly shuffles back and forth in front of the glass door, trying to peep in to see if there’s anyone inside. His colorful and richly patterned shirt could be considered cool and artsy if your head wasn’t feeling like it’s being split open by an axe. At the moment, his shirt offended you. Still, you’re strangely happy to see him– despite having to swallow down the bile rising up your throat every now and then. This is going to be such a long day.

“There’s usually no one inside this early, I got the key.” You rattle the bunch of keys hanging from your fluffy ball keychain to draw his attention. You instantly regret it, the metallic sound piercing through your eardrums and into your already pounding head.

“Oh,” Taehyung murmurs, caught slightly off guard by your voice but stepping aside to let you open the door, “ ‘morning, ____.”

You watch him adjust his sunglasses, yet miss the small smile you’ve seemed to have gotten used to in the short period of time you’d seen him. During the shoot yesterday, he was almost always smiling one way or another. Cocky, flirty, shy, sheepish,... He just seems really uncomfortable right now.

“Celebrated a little too hard yesterday?” You tease, trying to lighten up the mood and hopefully make him feel a bit more at ease.

“Ah, not really,” he softly chuckles, “I only hung out with Yoongi last night, I just really can’t drink… What about you?” He nods at your own sunglasses.

You snort as you push the door open and go to turn off the alarm, “Let’s just say I drank a little too well.”

Taehyung snickers at that, following you inside, “Is it selfish to be glad I’m not the only one feeling like a pile of shit today?”

“Not at all,” a smile finds its way back on your own lips as well, “better than suffering alone, for sure. You’re really early, by the way.”

Hesitating for a moment, he does that darned cute neck rubbing thing again as he mulls over his words. “Yoongi didn’t want to get up early this morning, so...I had to take the bus. I would’ve been late if I took the next one…”

You frown at that new piece of information. “Does Yoongi usually drive you?”

The red tips of his ears betray his embarrassment. “Yeah, except when it’s too early for him. I don’t have a driver’s license.”

“I see…”

A few moments pass in silence as you wait for the elevator to arrive.

“Are there going to be many other cursists today?” Taehyung decides to break the silence.

You purse your lips as you try to recall how many people applied for the seminar, “Not that many. It’s usually a group of around five to eight people, max. Why?”

“That’s still plenty,” he shrugs, “I just thought I was the only one struggling with the, uh, transition.”

That made you giggle, “No, not at all! Trust me, you’d be surprised if you knew how many actors have difficulties adjusting to the darker genres.”

Taehyung nods, face visibly more relaxed at your reassuring words.

“We’re here.” You announce when the elevator doors open on the fifth floor. He follows you into the hallway until you stop to open the reserved classroom with one of the keys on your bundle.

“Why did you do it? Make the change to this genre, I mean.” Taehyung asks after a few moments of thinking it over.

You smile as you let yourselves in, “You’re about to find out.”

Yoongi yawns while he shuffles his way towards the coffee machine, not even bothering to properly lift his feet and letting his slippers drag over the floor. With his robe left untied and a serious case of bed hair, it’s obvious he’s had a rough night taking care of his lightweight friend. Blinking the sleep from his heavy eyes, he adds an extra couple scoups of coffee in the machine. This morning calls for extra bitter bean juice.

He fishes his phone out of the deep pocket of his robe, meaning to send Taehyung a text, asking if he found the seminar building easily. Before he gets a chance to, though, he gets notified of a new article from an adult magazine he has a subscription with. As an adult movie actor’s manager, it’s always a good idea to keep up with the trends and monitor what’s happening in the industry. Upon seeing the headline, Yoongi all but breaks into a sweat.

★★★ Adult Life ★★★

Jeon ‘Busan Beefcake’ Jungkook: From Camboy Next Door To Your Next A-List Superstar.

He fervently taps the screen to open the notification as quickly as possible, teeth already nervously digging into his bottom lip when the article takes a few seconds to load.

‘You’ve heard it from us first: this fresh face will be all over the online platforms in no time. With his 22 years, eight inches, a body that’s been thoroughly looked after and an astounding amount of unbridled talent, he’s rapidly taking the adult film community by storm. Jeon Jungkook is bound to change the game, having decided to trade his modest background as a home amateur for a professional career as an adult film actor, producer and director. In just a week time, his first two projects ‘Pool Boy Pleasure’ (where a rich cougar wants him to do more than just clean her pool) and ‘Naughtitorium’ (where things get heated underneath the desks of a college auditorium) have gone viral and his name has been trending on twitter. Is it his youthful appearance, or just the raw but captivating style he wields? This extremely good-looking guy seems to be good at everything, many female viewers already nicknaming him their ‘Golden Boy’ as they subscribe to his channels and eagerly spend money to vote on what they’d like to see him do next. This is no flash in the pan, Jeon Jungkook is here to dominate the industry! Expect to see him all over your favorite platforms. We’re a fan!’

Yoongi swallows hard, remembering his own words. “We have to increase your online presence and we have to do it fast before some rookie with a good face and a 7 inch dick takes your place.”

This guy even has an 8 inch dick. It’s a fucking nightmare.

Yoongi squints his eyes at the photo attached to the article, a young and glowing stud with dark, long hair, showing off his juicy muscles and six-pack as he lies shirtless on a couch while smiling at the camera. His eyes look like they’re fucking sparkling or something. He has something irresistible over him. Cute, but powerful. And he knows how to direct and produce on top of acting? It’s a triple threat. ‘Golden Boy’ huh? Yoongi sighs and swipes the article away, going to the messaging app to text Taehyung like he initially meant to do.

‘Text me when the seminar is done, I’ll pick you up. I need to show you something.’

Heliotrope masterlist

[holyfuckthisfishcandrive]

Rent and Grafitti

First, Previous (Chap 19), Ao3

Word count: 1553

Warnings: semi-grafic description of a gory picture

Mum closed the door behind her staring at the ground in front of her.

"Our rent was paid," she said numbly.

"What?" Luan asked surprised.

Janus forced himself to act surprised as well.

"Yes, Mx Johnas said it was paid a few days ago. He was confused when I tried to ask him for a little more time to get the money together."

Janus managed not to smile proudly. He had faked Mum's handwriting for the letter, even if he hadn't actually signed it. Their landlord knew Mum's handwriting. He had learned to fake both handwritings and signatures in English five years ago.

It was a far more useful skill than most people thought.

While he and Luan prepared dinner Mum and Luan continued talking about the mysterious bill payer until a phone beeped in their bedroom and Mum left to check whose it was.

"I'm not sure why," Luan spoke quietly, clearly not meaning for Mum to hear him, "but I have the feeling you have something to do with this."

Janus froze for a split second.

"What makes you think that?" he asked. "Where would I even get that kind of money from? I don't even have a job."

Luan shrugged.

"I don't know. I don't know how you spend your free time. Maybe you picked it up after that heist? Maybe you found a different way to earn money. You're a clever kid. I wouldn't put it past you."

"I didn't do anything though," Janus lied.

"Alright, I didn't mean to accuse you of anything."

"Babe?" Mum called from the bedroom. "Your boss is calling."

Luan dropped his head with a sigh before pushing off the counter to leave the room.

Janus took over the pan and mum came back into the kitchen.

"How was your day, anyway?" she asked. "Did you meet up with any friends?"

For a moment he contemplated lying but he decided to be honest with her for once. She deserved to know at least something about his life.

"No, I had detention."

"What? Why? What happened?"

"Mr Heller called this trans guy in my Latin class a girl and a fake boy so I called him out on it."

"And he gave you detention?"

Janus nodded not looking at her.

Mum put a hand on his shoulder.

"You know you were in the right anyway, don't you?" she asked, pride in her voice.

Janus smiled up at her. "Yeah, of course, I do."

Mum pulled him close in a one-armed embrace. "How did I end up with the best son in the world, huh? I'm sorry I've been so busy lately."

"It's fine," Janus said. "I'm old enough to take care of myself."

She was quiet for a moment.

"That's what I'm afraid off," he caught her whispering before she went to set the table.

Luan came back in a little later saying that his boss had ordered him to come immediately and that they shouldn't wait for him to eat. He looked as done as possible with the world as he put his coat back on but Janus knew that his boss wouldn't ever get to see that glare.

Mum turned on the TV saying that maybe 'those thieves' had struck again and they could pick up a bit of cash if it was nearby. Janus chuckled knowing full well that this wouldn't be the case.

It had almost been a month since their bank robbery and he and Virgil had more plans already but it'd take time. They couldn't risk getting arrested, running into some supervillain, accidentally making the mafia their enemy or running intro Heartrate and his sidekicks. Neither of them were fighters after all.

At least as far as Janus was aware. At this point, he doubted anything about Virgil could surprise him anymore.

Mum switched through the channels until she finally found the news.

Some guy Janus didn't recognize had died at the age of 78 and Mum told him that he had been hot when she had been young.

"And- this just in - Professor Logic is on his second heist this month!"

That caught Janus' attention. Prof Logic wasn't the type to conduct heists often.

Security footage of the inside of the Central Bank showed Logic shoving a man towards a vault with a gun to his back. The man shook as he began opening the vault. The Professor looked up as if something had caught his attention before turning towards the camera. It looked like someone had brought it to his attention even though there was no one there with him. He aimed and the footage cut off.

After dinner, Janus helped Mum clean up the kitchen and she went to bed.

Janus let his pet snakes, Deklan and Desmund out of their cage and let them drape over him as he sat down on his bed and picked up his phone.

Four unread messages.

Two from the girl he was assigned to do a presentation with asking when and where they should meet up to work on it which he didn't even open so she wouldn't know he had read them - he didn't feel like texting her back - and two from Virgil he opened without hesitation.

The first was a badly lit picture of a graffiti of head, detached from the neck, with what looked like blood dripping down and something he couldn't really make out in the left eye. The second was a single question mark.

Janus didn't need more to understand what Virgil wanted to know.

 Looks cool

 What's with the eye?

He waited if Virgil would respond for a few minutes and left the messenger app to go to his browser - oh.

He had forgotten what he had looked u earlier.

The colours of the nonbinary pride flag illuminated his face - or was it their face?

"They," Janus whispered, trying to picture someone using the pronoun. "Their name is Janus."

They sat up and pet Desmund, letting their fingers slide over her smooth scales.

'They' sounded nice.

It made Janus smile.

But did that really mean that Janus was nonbinary?

'He' didn't exactly feel bad after all. Just not as good as 'they'.

With a sigh Janus began to scroll through different posts made by nonbinary people, scanning most of them only briefly and dropping a like here and there on the ones that came so close to home it was almost weird and a few nice artworks.

 It's okay if it's just a phase.

The phrase was in the same font, in the same colour as everything around it but it made Janus freeze, thumb on the screen, ready to scroll on.

Instead, Janus read the post.

The message was simple.

That is was fine to experiment with pronouns, labels and names, even if you came to the conclusion that you were cis the entire time. At the end was a smiley face and the words that had stopped Janus.

 It's okay if it's just a phase.

"They," Janus whispered again and clicked on the comment button.

 Thank you

Then they switched back to their messenger app.

Virgil was online and had read the texts but not replied yet. Not that it mattered.

 Can you meet me at Winblae by the park in 15?

Janus hesitated before sending, watching the 'Typing...' blink in and out of existence next to Virgil's contact name before finally tapping the small blue button.

The two arrows turned blue right away.

The 'Typing...' disappeared again.

 sure

 emergency?

Janus couldn't help a small smile.

 no, just need to talk to you irl

They brought their snakes back to their cages and noticed that their fingers were shaking slightly.

Virgil wouldn't mind, right? He wasn't transphobic. Or enbyphobic... right?

They took a deep breath, grabbed their jacket and climbed out of the window.

They would be fine.

It was just a coming out.

To their best friend.

It would be fine.

Virgil was already at the park when Janus got there.

He sat on a swing and stared into the cloudy sky.

Janus took a seat on the one next to him.

"So, what's up?" Virgil asked, looking at them. "Did something happen?"

Janus took a breath and let it out watching it turn into fog in the cold air.

"Kind of," they began. "Nothing bad though, don't worry. At least I don't think it's bad. I just... I've been thinking lately..."

"A dangerous past time," Virgil commented and it startled a chuckle out of them.

"I think... I think I might not be a boy," Janus finally managed to say.

Virgil was quiet for a moment.

"Are you... something else?" he then asked.

"I'm not sure but I think I might be nonbinary."

The statement hung in the air between them and Janus wished they could take it back and stuff it down, deep down so it'd never reach the outside world.

"Do you want me to call you by different pronouns then?" Virgil asked.

"Maybe they/them?"

"Okay," Virgil nodded to himself. "A different name?"

Janus felt a weight fall of their chest.

"No, I think Janus is fine."

Virgil smiled at them.

"Okay," he said.

Yeah, this was fine.

"So, where did you spray that head?" Janus asked. "Because the pic was shit."

Next

Taglist:

@patton-cake , @isabelle-stars

[snakeboistan]

WHUMPTOBER DAY TEN: THEY LOOK SO PRETTY WHEN THEY BLEED

Blood Loss I Internal Bleeding I Trail Of Blood

Ao3

“I just can’t wait,” Nagisa said, eyes alight with childish eagerness and an excited smile radiating off of his face, “I mean I’ve heard rumours that Sonic Ninja was going to get a TV show but when the trailer was released this morning - it was just so good and I’ve watched it like fifty times already. I mean everything about it was so perfect and it teased so many things from the comics that the movies missed out on - like there was this one scene that showed a building that looked like the orphanage where one of the characters’ mother was raised which is so cool because the movies didn’t really go that much into the backstories of the older generation that much. Oh and there was like this one part where the camera pans over the headquarters and it looks all destroyed but there’s this emblem on the floor that is the same one that the third Sonic Ninja wore in the League Of Cats Saga - which was one of my favourite storylines. I’ve already got like a ton of theories.”

“Well, you sound excited,” Sugino teased with amusement, smiling at the way his best friend always got so lost in his adoration of his favourite franchise. It was hard to tell if the rosy hue on the shorter boy’s face was because he was embarrassed at his enthusiasm or because of the biting cold of the Japanese winter but it was adorable regardless.

“Heh, yeah I am,” Nagisa agreed sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck with an arm. He pierced another chocolate sauce covered mini pancake with his fork and plopped it into his mouth, closing his eyes in contentment at the warmth that covered his tongue, “I do get a bit carried away when it comes to superheroes.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Sugino said as he threw the now empty box of pancakes into a trash can that they just passed, “It’s normal to get excited about the things that interest you. I mean, have you seen how I get about baseball. It’s not a normal week in my house if mum doesn’t offer taking me to a therapist at least once. Besides it’s nice to see you talk about the things you love, you rarely do in class. I bet you’re counting down the days until the premiere, huh?”

“Yeah, I am. Next Saturday is marked on my calendar. Well, next Sunday technically.”

“Oh, why’s that?”

“It’s a Netflix show and since I don’t have Netflix I’ll have to use my regular streaming site, which always uploads on the day after.”

“You could just use mine,” Sugino shrugs simply, casually placing his hands in his pockets, “you’re more than welcome to.”

“Wha-no Sugino,” Nagisa stopped dead in his tracks and Sugino was worried that the sudden movement would’ve made him slip on the snow-turned-sludge that caked the pavement, “I-you really don’t need to do that. I’m fine really. One day isn’t going to make that much of a difference.”

The black-haired boy gave an all-suffering sigh at the other’s words, knowing for a fact what was coming, “listen man, it’s no big deal. You’re practically family anyway. My parents and brother love you, you know that.”

“Doesn’t mean that I can freeload off of you,” Nagisa mumbled.

��You’re not freeloading if I’m offering,” Sugino gave him a light whack on the back of his head, “and if it really means that much to you then you could just come over and we can watch the first episode together.”

Nagisa looked at him and gave a small smile, “okay, but I’ll have to ask my mum first, though.”

“Great.”

“If she lets me, though, you have to let me pay for the snacks.”

“Wha-Nagisa.”

“Hey, you’re paying for the account, I’m paying for the food. It’s the very least I could do.”

“Hm, you’re not going to drop this, are you?”

“No,” Nagisa replied brightly.

“Alright then.”

The two of them continued to walk along the sidewalk, feet crunching against freshly fallen snow and hands interlocked between them.

“The snow’s really pretty,” Nagisa mused, looking up at the metallic silver clouds looming over them, “I’ve always loved walking home in the winter. Everything just looks so magical when it’s covered in snow, especially when people start decorating with the lights.”

“Yeah,” Sugino agreed softly, watching as the snowflakes twirled around in their own ballet dance, gracefully and elegantly descending like falling sakura blossoms, “I remember how I used to catch snowflakes with my tongue when I was younger. Last year, when the roads were closed because of too much snow, my dad took my brother and me out to the park and we had the best snowball fight ever and went sledding and mum made hot chocolate that was so amazing - totally made up for how I couldn’t play baseball for a week.”

“Sounds awesome,” Nagisa smiled, “snowball fights are enjoyable. Remember the one we had yesterday during break? I had a lot of fun.”

“Only because you were like the last one to get hit,” Sugino countered, “I still don’t know how you could hide when the snow showed your footprints. At least you were safe from that full-blown war.”

“It wasn’t that bad.”

“Fuwa started charging at everyone with a sword. I don’t even know where she got a sword from.”

“But it was funny when I got Karma, right?”

“Yeah, it is really cool when you just appear out of nowhere like that. I mean it’s bad for the crazy people that try to hurt us but it’s cool when you use it for fun.”

“Heh, thanks,” Nagisa wore an expression of something Sugino couldn’t identify, “it’s weird though. All my life, I’ve been invisible. I’m used to people ignoring me and not paying attention to me. I never thought that me being invisible could be something useful in assassination. I guess I’m learning all sorts of things about myself this year.”

“I think we all are,” Sugino squeezed his hand, “and I can’t wait to learn more.”

“Me too,” Nagisa squeezed back, “I hope we make more memories with our class.”

Sugino opened his mouth to say something, probably to comment about how deep they were being on a Saturday afternoon fifteen minutes after they had been colouring the black and white picture on the back of WcDonalds’ kids menu, when it happened.

Nagisa’s eyes widened, mouth opening with a surprised gasp, and before he knew it, Sugino felt all the breath leave him as he got shoved to the side, leaving him to stare aimlessly at his best friend who was running towards, towards-

“WATCH OUT!” Nagisa cried, jumping forwards and pushing some elementary school kid away right before-

Sugino wished that the following events would be a blur later. He wished that he would never be able to recall with complete lucidity the way Nagisa’s azure eyes widened just the tiniest fraction when the car had struck him, the way the air was bombarded with the screeching of tires, the blaring of headlights, the blood-curdling snap of what sounded like bones. For a split-second it was like someone had pressed pause and time was stuck in a freeze-frame, just so that the image of Nagisa a second away from death could be forever ingrained into his mind, so that every detail can be observed with perfect clarity. Then it was like a movie that was played both in fast-forward and slow-motion; the events that followed happened so rapidly that Sugino could do nothing but watch but so slowly that he was able to memorise every change that occurred at every second.

Nagisa’s body collided with the hood of the vehicle and he was sent flying, sprawling onto the side of pavement with a heavy skid. His body laid there, still, stationery, unmoving. The movements of his chest - if there were any to begin with - were infinitesimal and it was impossible to tell if his eyes were open or closed because of the red-coated strands of blue that hid them from view.

Sugino ran. Fast. Faster than he does when he hits a home run, faster than he does during training, faster than he’s ever run before because that’s Nagisa, that’s his best friend who’s lying there still still still.

“NAGISA!” he screams, cries, begs, dropping to his knees. The sting of the tarmac grazing his knees has nothing on the corrosive cyanide that wells up in his eyes, blurring his vision but he can’t lose focus, can’t stop trying, “NAGISA GET UP! NAGISA COME ON!”

He shuffles closer to the - the body, ignoring the scarlet wetness that stains his jeans, of the pool of rich crimson that’s a sickening contrast to the pure white snow and light grey gravel beneath them (like it’s yelling ‘look at me, look at me and know the truth’), and takes a limp hand. He fumbles with the wrist, his hands sweaty and loose against the frail, malleable appendage. At last, he places a thumb against the right artery-

Seconds pass.

Minutes pass.

Hours pass.

Nothing.

“Nononononono,” he mutters frantically. He grabs at Nagisa, turning him over-

Nagisa looks at him, eyes open but unseeing, their cerulean gaze foggy and clouded up. Tear tracks of red running down half of his ashen white face, dripping and dripping onto the street, painting his jacket, mingling with the pastel blue strands and dots of snow. Like a marinette, the shorter boy’s actions were under the control of the hands that held him. Sugino shook him and shook him and shook him.

“NAGISA! WAKE UP! COME ON MAN! THIS ISN’T FUNNY! WAKE UP! GET UP! NAGISA PLEASE!”

The blunette remained unmoving, unblinking, un-anything-ing. His head resting on the baseball lover’s lap, as if he was just in a deep sleep.

“Nagisa…”

Sugino doesn’t think he’ll ever find snow fun anymore.

[michelles-garden-of-evil]

Episode 42 Review: Here Goes Peter Cottontail

{ YouTube: 1 | 2 | 3 }

{ Full Synopses/Recaps: Debby Graham | Bryan Gruszka }

At last, we’ve hit another milestone on Strange Paradise. A little less than a year ago, I discussed the third and final costumed flashback. Just under six months ago, we reached Episode 30, the first episode for which conclusive proof of executive meddling exists. And today we shall explore the introductory episode of a character particularly notorious among Strange Paradise fans. That’s right: this episode features the first appearance of the infamous Rabbit of Evil. The true face of evil has arrived on Maljardin, and it's soft with long ears and a fuzzy tail.

Because the plot has now split off completely from the Lost Episode summaries and I’ve already discussed the one for this episode, I’m going to ignore it for this post. I’m not even going to do much analysis this time. Instead, let us just lay out our beach towels on Maljardin, relax, and bask in the glow of the coming insanity.

Early morning on Maljardin. The unseen clock chimes three, and already Jean Paul Desmond is up sitting on the couch in the Great Hall next to the decanter of his favorite drink. Although it is the demon hour and almost everyone else in the château is asleep as far as he knows, he is already dressed in his brown velvet jacket, as one does when one is the richest man in the world on the coldest tropical island in existence. One would assume that he would at least loosen his tie to make himself a little more comfortable, but then, I’m not a fancy rich guy living in the 1960s, so what would I know?

Feeling the presence of his demonic ancestor Jacques Eloi des Mondes, he stands up and approaches his portrait as though in a trance. During their brief staring contest, Jacques begins to taunt him: “Come now, Jean Paul Desmond. Three o'clock in the morning and still you wander the house. Why?”

“Because your evil wanders here, Jacques Eloi des Mondes!” Jean Paul answers overly dramatically. “I sum-”

“Jean Paul, no oaths on your honor that you would be compelled to uphold. It might be the end of us both. And Erica might never rise to a new beginning.”

Jacques tells Jean Paul to go to bed because *he’s* tired. Could this be evidence that Jacques and Jean Paul are one and the same?

I like the way that Raxl's face appears on the screen just as the title card is fading.

Raxl paying her respects to Erica Desmond.

We cut to Raxl visiting Erica’s cryocapsule, when suddenly a little cockatiel starts tweeting. And who could it be but our mascot, the adorable Chalcko?

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<3

Quito checking on his beloved bird.

Meanwhile, Jean Paul visits the lab to find Dr. Alison Carr sleeping at her desk, Dr. Menkin’s notes next to her:

For the love of yourself, Jean Paul, do not disturb!

He wakes her up despite it being very early in the morning (because God forbid she not sleep in her own bed, I guess?). Really, there are only a handful of good excuses to wake someone up at 3 AM, including to ensure they catch an early flight and to kick them out of your bar after they passed out drunk with their glass shattered into a million pieces in front of the talking portrait across the room. Having fallen asleep at one’s desk while pulling an all-nighter that your employer deems unnecessary isn’t one of them, IMO. But, just like my cat who wakes me up around 3 almost every night crying for a midnight snack, he gets away with it because he’s cute.

Jacques has made cat-like faces before on this show, so now it’s Jean Paul’s turn to act like a cat.

That’s not to say that Jean Paul’s cuteness makes Alison any less annoyed with him. He asks her why she stayed up so late to study the notes, and she responds, “I can't sleep very well, anyway, and what else is there to do, since you keep us here as prisoners on this Island? Good night and please don't disturb anything.“ She leaves and he starts flipping through the notes.

Meanwhile, outside among the suspiciously Canadian coniferous trees of Maljardin...

Wait for it...

Quito finds a big, fluffy black rabbit hopping around the garden and brings the adorable, plump creature inside. His crush Holly happens to be in the Great Hall when he returns, and she falls in love with the rabbit at first sight.

“I didn't know anything as wholesome and innocent like that existed on Maljardin,” she coos. "Oh, he's so sweet! I haven't seen anything like him for--well, it seems like a whole lifetime.”

Then she remembers what Raxl said about there being no wild animal life on the island. “But Quito,” she says, “Raxl said like, nothing like this could exist on this island for three hundred years! I guess this little fellow disproves that, doesn't it?”

“What are you going to do with it?” she continues. “I mean, are you going to keep it?” Quito shakes his head. “You should. You should keep it for a pet. He’d make a lovely pet, something nice in this house of accident and death.” Because Quito is reluctant to keep the rabbit and has no way of expressing why to Holly, she offers to keep it as a pet.

“I wonder how he managed out there with all that poisonous undergrowth around?” she thinks out loud, as the rabbit starts to try to jump out of Kurt Schiegl’s arms, which I doubt was in the script. The rabbit they got to play the new embodiment of evil on Maljardin doesn’t always want to behave the way the plot demands. I suspect that, instead of getting a trained animal actor, someone just brought in their pet or bought a bunny on short notice at an Ottawa pet store or nearby farm. I like the rabbit. The rabbit does what it wants and doesn’t give a rat’s ass about following the script or doing what Jerry Layton wants it to.

Holly asks Quito to make her a cage so that she can keep the rabbit in her room, and he nods in agreement (I’m guessing just because he knows it’ll please her). He leaves. She sits down at the dining room table and rings for Raxl, who is not pleased when she tells her about the new guest:

Holly: "Hey, Raxl." Raxl: "Good morning, Miss Holly." Holly: "You know, everything I've heard about this island isn't the truth." Raxl: "Truth is a matter of seeing." Holly: "Well, I've seen. You told me that because of the curse, nothing could exist outside in that poisonous jungle." Raxl: "The Devil's evil is everywhere on Maljardin!"

Holly: "Well, just this once, Raxl, you may be wrong." Raxl: "It may be that demon wants you to think I am!"

Raxl instantly suspects that the rabbit is a tool of THE DEVIL JACQUES ELOI DES MONDES.

The bit about all the plants being poisonous on Maljardin, by the way, may be a retcon. In Episode 13, Jacques mentions that papayas are native to the island. I suppose that, because he didn’t say that they were picked on Maljardin, that they could have been grown on another island. Still, I’m not ruling out the possibility of Ian Martin and/or a ghostwriter retconning this detail.

This scene is followed by a cool shot where the camera pans along the side of the staircase and over to Jacques’ portrait (see the beginning of Part 2), then a short scene of Quito pulling out a huge wicker picnic basket for a makeshift cage while Chalcko tweets as though trying to warn him of the evil presence.

In the morning, Alison returns to the lab to find Jean Paul in a scandalous state of undress:

Ye gods! He took off his suit jacket again! I am SHOCKED and SCANDALIZED by this wanton display of nudity! ;)

Jean Paul must be even more stressed now than last night if he not only has his suit jacket off, but has also loosened his tie. Turns out he ended up pulling an all-nighter himself in the lab reading the notes, even though Alison doubts that he possesses the necessary knowledge to understand notes about cellular reconstruction. Jean Paul asks Alison if Dr. Menkin did any experiments on animals, but it’s not clear if he’s asking just out of curiosity, because of something mentioned in the notes, or if somehow he feels the presence of the rabbit despite not having seen it yet. Whatever his motivation, the screenwriter almost certainly added the line to imply that the rabbit may have belonged to Dr. Menkin.

Using such a line as a hint (or, more likely, as a red herring) is a very Ian Martin thing to do, so I’m thinking that he must have written this scene. For a while, I suspected that perhaps some ghostwriter hired by either Jerry Layton or Steve Krantz inserted the scenes with the rabbit into a later draft, but now I’m having second thoughts. While it is possible that one of the showrunners hired a ghostwriter to speed up the script edits, this line has Martin’s influence written all over it. The insertion of the evil rabbit isn’t his style, but this kind of dialogue certainly is.

Also note that the very next shot is of the rabbit again.

Hearing the bird tweet is making Quito anxious. It’s obvious that the bird detects some sort of presence.

Jean Paul and Alison go to the dining room and sit down for breakfast with Holly. Jean Paul reminds her that another séance is coming and she tells him that she wants no part of it. “The spirits will decide that, and the Conjure Woman,” says Raxl.

“Vangie said that the conjure cards--the Tarot cards--spoke to one person,” Jean Paul adds, flubbing his line adorably. “They may well speak to another, for or against.” I’m not sure what he’s implying, especially because he faces Alison (or maybe the Teleprompter) as he delivers the line.

More proof that Maljardin is no tropical paradise, but a dystopia. (”Rattled” = “Raxl’s”)

Alison tells Holly that Jean Paul will probably blame them if the séance doesn’t bring him into contact with Erica and Jean Paul glares at her before flouncing passive-aggressively. I’m so conflicted about Jean Paul at this point because he’s becoming more and more of a control freak (and therefore more and more unlikeable), and yet he’s so adorable. Take a look at the face he makes just before flouncing:

Foxy!

And this shot of him from earlier in the scene:

Never have I seen any guy look this cute after pulling an all-nighter.

Holly tells Alison about the rabbit Quito bought brought her (yes, there’s another creative line interpretation). “That’s impossible!” she replies, stunned. “I mean, nothing alive exists out there now.” There are so many flubs in this episode that it makes me wonder if the actors had less time to rehearse than usual.

An unspecified amount of time later, Alison catches Jean Paul arguing with Jacques’ portrait, then Quito feeds the rabbit a carrot to the sound of more tweets. (Anyone else miss the days when “tweets” referred only to the noise that birds make? God, I'm barely 28 and already I feel so old.) Alison warns Jean Paul that dabbling in the occult is bad for his mental health, but he doesn’t care because he needs to hear Erica’s voice so badly. He tells her he’ll buy her some animals for her experiments the next time he visits the main island just to shut her up. (Spoiler: He won’t.)

And then Quito arrives, carrying the rabbit in its makeshift cage. Like Raxl, Jean Paul is not pleased to see the animal. “Holly, where on Earth did you get that!” he asks.

“Right on this Earth, on this island, from Quito,” she responds innocently.

Jean Paul giving his best “WTF” face. He’s lived on the island long enough to know that the rabbit came out of nowhere.

He asks Raxl about it and she cries out to the Great Serpent to tell her what the Devil’s plans are for Maljardin, making the Sign of the Great Serpent with her hands. Alison insists that the rabbit is only an animal, but Raxl reminds her that no animals can survive outside on the island--meaning, by her logic, that it must be a demon or similar evil being!

Jean Paul asks Quito where he found the rabbit. Raxl interprets the signs he makes as meaning “on the path to the boathouse,” which leads Holly and Alison to think that the rabbit must have snuck aboard Quito’s boat and sailed there with him. Raxl’s response?

Raxl: “It is a creature of the Devil!”

Holly objects and insists that the rabbit is only an animal, but Raxl sticks to her belief that it’s actually a demon assuming the guise of innocence, most likely sent by THE DEVIL JACQUES ELOI DES MONDES himself! No one believes her, not even Jean Paul:

Jean Paul: "I must admit, Raxl, this is very unlikely." Raxl: "Not here. An animal here is an impossibility. Is that not true?" Jean Paul: "Until now, yes!" Raxl: "Then what force altered the impossible? There are forces at work on Maljardin as the hour draws near when the master will attend a séance and seek through purified mind and cleansed spirit to reach his Erica beyond the veiled curtain. What does the master say?"

Jean Paul does not respond. He looks like he is about to cry.

Raxl: "Quito! You will remove the rabbit. It is evil!"

Raxl: "It brings danger and wickedness and more evil than we will ever know! It must be destroyed and buried in the sea!"

Raxl: "If the master wishes to contact his Erica and hear her voice, he will be advised: that animal is evil!" Holly: "Mr. Desmond, please, no!"

Jacques’ commentary.

Coming up next: Raxl makes a horrifying--and mystifying--discovery when she examines the Rabbit of Evil.

{ <- Previous: Episode 41   ||   Next: Episode 43 -> }

[karihighman]

An Upstead timeline

Because I was thinking about how far Jay Halstead & Hailey Upton have come, and I just wanted to be nostalgic for a moment. Enjoy my ramblings! (:

The beginnings: season 4

Ah, yes. Hailey’s debut. I loved 4x21 “Fagin” for that reason. Also, Jay’s first impression of her seemed to be like “dang this girl is sassy...but I’m not complaining” haha.

Also we can’t forget the sass Hailey displayed in the survelliance van. 😂 Legendary. And Jay kept up w/it too. We love a sarcastic duo - even before they were partnered up!

Anyway, the next episode was when Hailey officially joined Intelligence. A moment of awkward silence for the two of them trying to shuffle around each other when Voight gave Hailey Jay’s desk because she was now partners w/Erin. Oops. Too funny.

Then of course, the season 4 finale saw Hailey be invited out to Molly’s with Jay, Adam, Kevin, & Will. She had the memorable “I’m Greek, we see tragedy in everything” line, along with that first of many looks she’d give to Jay after a conversation - longing & wistful. 😔

The new divide: season 5

Season 5 saw Hailey and Jay become partners & already they were there for each other when Jay had a tough case. While we didn’t see it air in the actual episode, there was a deleted scene from 5x01 that showed Hailey telling Jay that she’s “got his back.”

As the season progressed, we saw them continue to be there for each other as a source of support. Remember in “Fallen” when Jay kept checking up on Hailey’s “relationship” with fellow officer Sean McGrady?

“Is this really about the case?”

“See ya tomorrow.”

“Ooookay.” — yeah okay Jay we see u.

The next few episodes were Jay’s big arc in s5 where he dealt with being undercover while dealing with PTSD. Hailey was “neutral” at first, because she didn’t know Jay well enough to know how this would affect him, though she’d see it soon enough when he pointed a gun in her face at the end of 5x07. Even after that incident, she still called him to check on him. Now that’s a quality partner.

Another telling moment for their partnership was when Hailey went to bat for Jay with Camila. She knew if she talked he’d be in big trouble, so she had to do something to help him. She still made sure to remind Camila that she would “bury her” if she didn’t keep her mouth shut about Jay. Damn, remind me not to get on Hailey’s bad side. 😯

She even convinced Jay to go to therapy — how amazing is that? She helped him get help.

There were a few lighter, fluffier moments for their partnership as the season progressed, which you can see below —

And then came my favorite episode for them - Ghosts.

Hailey got tangled up with Booth who got her old partner killed. Jay, being her new partner, was concerned about how close Hailey was getting...not only to the case, but to Booth, as Booth was bordering on obsessed w/her.

He bailed her out, but then then two argued at Hailey’s UC apartment (hello, married couple moment haha) - But despite that, he still helped her go on w/the undercover plan.

Cue Jay going under as Ryan, a dealer that Hailey (as Kelly) knew. Things got even more awkward for the trio when Booth asked “Ryan” how many times he screwed “Kelly.” Yikesarama.

Towards the end of the episode, Booth got handsy with Hailey, which put Jay in an awkward position. He tried to keep his cool, but then the deal was blown. Hailey being the badass that she is fought off Booth, but it was Jay who brought her back down to reality to keep her from doing something stupid (even though let’s be honest, Booth deserved a few more kicks in the head).

The kicker of the episode came when Jay went to check on Hailey, and the two would start what would turn out to be “their thing” aka - drinks and long conversations about their cases & the feelings surrounding them. Hailey opened up about Booth and Garrett, and Jay listened. He was there for her, and that’s when they really started to form something special. Something that was more than just a typical partnership.

The rest of the season would only build on that momentum, bringing out little pieces of Jay and Hailey’s pasts, as well as how they dealt with things amongst the team. Jay lent Hailey a supportive hand (literally) when Al died in the season 5 finale, & in a deleted scene, the two offered comfort to each other at the vigil Intelligence held.

Care & being there: season 6

Jay and Hailey’s partnership grew even more so during s6. Their first major moments came in the crossover episode, when Jay was shot. Hailey was distraught, but it was more than that. She thought he was dead, & she thought she’d lost him forever. Her emotions were running high and she pushed down all those feelings that had come bubbling up to the surface. But they were there.

(Unfortunately she compensated by sleeping with Ruzek, thus beginning Upzek. Ugh. Anyway).

Even though she started a fling-turned-semi-relationship with Adam, Hailey & Jay still leaned on each other.

When Hailey dealt with a tough case, Jay was there for her. He made sure she was okay. Heck, even Adam noticed & told her, they should talk you know, “partner to partner.”

The following episode saw Hailey help Jay when his judgement was colored by his war past. She then reminded him of the famous “thing that works between them” and offered to buy him a beer to chat. He accepted.

When Jay found out about said romance, he was taken aback and you could tell by the look on his face that he was hurt...but honestly, maybe a little jealous. I think this solidified his feelings for Hailey, even if she didn’t wanna admit her own to herself yet.

“We’re good. And we’re always gonna be good.” -Jay to Hailey

6x12 has them do another heart to heart conversation, only for it to be interrupted by Ruzek, who called Hailey. Jay told her she should go, and even though she said okay, you could tell she didn’t really mean it. Just like Jay didn’t really want her to go. But these two have gotten good at hiding their feelings by now.

*forgot to add 6x14 when Hailey was kidnapped (along w/Kim). You could see the look of complete distress on Jay’s face when he & Kevin raced out to the truck, just missing it. Then when Adam told him they “should’ve been all over them” Jay went on the defensive, telling Adam “he didn’t know what went down” because he wasn’t there. Ruzek, Ruzek, Ruzek...as if Halstead wasn’t beating himself up enough! Even though later in the ep, Adam and Antonio were the ones to find Hailey & Kim, you saw Jay later ask if she was okay; and you saw the camera pan to both of their expressions when Voight gave the “work things at work” talk. Jay felt bad knowing he didn’t do his job at protecting his partner; Hailey was starting to debate her relationship with Ruzek on the job.*

6x15 offered us the iconic scene of “if I was gonna follow someone blind, I’d follow you” which we now know is essentially Hailey-speak for “I love you.” Because she told Jay that she’s trusted him from the day she met him. How freaking adorable is that?

Fast forward to the s6 finale & you’ve got a whole lot more feels between these two. From Jay’s line of “I’m going where you go” meaning he to would follow Hailey; to his protecting her FIRST without regard for his own life (actually literally using himself as a human shield!); and then of course, their heartbreaking conversation in the break room.

“We’ve only been partners a couple years...you’ll forget about me just fine.”

“Hailey... [no].”

aka - Hailey was scared of losing him again & not knowing if they’d be partners again, so she bit down on her feelings and brushed it off. Jay did the same, although he looked as if he was going to spill any second of that scene. You know what I mean.

You could see the looks in their eyes — they were saying everything without actually saying a word.

This episode was when the both of them seemed to accept their feelings of each other to themselves — as in, they admitted it to themselves, even if they weren’t ready to share them with each other. 💙

Deeper feelings: season 7

And now we’re onto s7, where even in the premiere, you could see how in sync Jay and Hailey were. The two worked together to help their boss, and they relied on each other more than ever to get the job done. Hailey supported Jay, even if she didn’t always agree with him.

Later on in the season, we saw him do the same thing. Although, when Voight split them up in 7x03, they weren’t happy about it. Jay showed his emotions with a look, while Hailey vocalized hers to Voight. Hailey = 😠 there.

In the crossover, we saw a concerned Jay over Hailey being quarantined, but also a concerned Hailey when Jay was taken hostage by Seldon. She even went all Sniper to save him! Go Hailey go!

They continued to work alongside each other, mainly in surveillance (apparently those two have a thing for vans 😉) to help the unit solve cases.

Jay had another tough case in 7x06, and Hailey noticed how much it affected him, even if she didn’t say it right away. Jay would do the same for her in the next episode when her CI was shot, with looks and a concerned voice like she had done with him.

And now we’re at 7x09, aka the fall finale from hell because Jay’s life is in the balance.

And Hailey Upton is livid over it. She was so desperate to get Jay back safely that she pushed the limits to find him. And just when she FINALLY did, he was ripped away from her yet again. Heartbreakingly tragic for these two...almost like a Romeo & Juliet vibe. 💔

Here’s hoping Jay will be okay in 7x10 when Chicago PD comes back in January, because Hailey really can’t lose the man she loves. I think this made her realize just how much she cares. And he cares so much for her.

Upstead ship captain Jesse Lee Soffer said it best: if you were to ask Jay or Hailey, “do you love him/her?” They’d say yes. As for what kind of love that is, they aren’t 100% sure yet...

because they haven’t even admitted their feelings to each other yet. But anyone can see that they are there. Pure and genuine feelings. Love. Respect. Admiration. 🖤

[thatfanficstuff]

TLIMD - 14

Pairing: Clint Barton x Reader

Warnings: nope

A/N: I decided to go ahead and post mainly due to the comment asking if I was going to be happy with it if I spent more time on it and No I don’t think I will. It’s a filler chapter but kind of needed. Anyway...hope you like it.

***

It was several hours later before Clint even mentioned heading home. The two of you had been cuddled on the couch watching the enormous television he’d insisted on getting. You had to admit it was nice being able to see everything on the screen clearly.

Clint yawned. “I supposed I should think about heading home at some point in my life.”

“If you must.” You tilted your head back to look at him with a faux pout.

He chuckled and patted your arm to get you to lean forward. After he sat up, he grabbed his phone and sent a couple of texts. Once he received a response, he tossed it back on the table. “Scott will be here in a bit.”

“I already got your tux together. It’s hanging in my closet.”

“Perfect. I assume you don’t mind if I borrow your clothes.”

You looked at him with wide eyes. “But those are my favoritest favorite clothes ever, Mr. Barton.”

He narrowed his eyes with a growl and captured your chin between his thumb and forefinger. His kiss was quick and hard. He got to his feet when it was finished. “Behave.”

You gave him what you hoped was an innocent smile, but knowing you, you failed miserably. He disappeared and returned carrying his tux and wearing his dress shoes with your pajamas. It was quite the look. “Stay there,” you told him.

It only took you a second to retrieve your camera and snap a couple of pictures before he could protest.

“And what do you intend to do with those?”

“I’m selling them to TMZ, Clint. What do you think I’m doing with them?”

He just looked at you and you rolled your eyes.

“Do you realize the pictures I could have sold over the years? They’d put this one to shame that’s for sure.” You placed your camera on the kitchen counter. “Do you have everything?”

He laid his tux across the back of the couch before grabbing his phone and slipping it into his pocket. “I think that does it.” He made a show of looking you over. “You should probably at least put on pants if you’re coming with me.”

“What?” He’d never even suggested that he wanted you to go with him.

He shrugged. “I mean you don’t have to, but I thought you might want to swim. And Wanda’s coming over for dinner.”

Honestly, a swim sounded heavenly. You couldn’t even remember the last time you used the pool. And seeing Wanda sounded even better. “You could have just said swim and left it at that,” you told him and headed down the hall for your room. You slipped into a comfortable outfit with sandals and grabbed your purse. Not that you’d probably need it for anything, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

“Got your suit?” Clint asked as you stepped back into the room.

“I think I’ve got like three at your house. It’s literally the only place I swim.”

He gave one of his half smirks. “Oh yeah. Does that include that blue thing with the bows on the sides?” He licked his lips as he ran his gaze over you.

“Really, Clint?”

“What? A man can hope, can’t he?”

***  

You sat at the counter watching Clint cook. You’d offered to help but he’d turned you down flat. Apparently, Wanda wanted his BLTs for dinner and you weren’t about to complain. This man made the best sandwiches you ever ate in your life. You sipped at a beer while you watched him move around the kitchen. Occasionally he shot a smirk in your direction causing your face to heat.

The kitchen door opened and closed with a bang. “Honey, I’m home,” Wanda yelled as she made her dramatic entrance.

You chuckled as she threw her arms around your neck to give you a hug. “Love you, too, Wanda,” you said as you returned the embrace.

She immediately took the seat beside you. “Are you ready for classes to start? What are you taking again?”

Clint cleared his throat causing the two of you to look at him. “What am I? Chopped liver?” He held his arms out wanting his own hug from his daughter.

Your lips twitched and you took another sip of your beer to hide your smirk. Acting greatly put upon, Wanda moved around the counter and hugged her dad. “It’s not cool to hug your dad at my age. Seriously.” That had you laughing. Wanda had never turned down a hug from her dad in her life. Even in front of your entire school.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said as he hugged her tightly. “Besides, Y/N hugs me.”

“Dad,” she groaned and shoved him lightly. “Really?”

You buried your face in your hands while the two of them laughed at you.

Clint took mercy on you announcing the food was ready. Since he had two plates in hand, you grabbed his beer from the other side of the counter and sat it at his place. He smiled in thanks and handed you the extra plate. Realizing you’d forgotten to put the deli mustard on the table that both Clint and Wanda liked, you got up and grabbed it from the fridge. You sat it on the table and grabbed Clint’s sandwich to add it while he and Wanda talked about school.

“Thanks, sweetheart,” he said absently as you placed his plate back in front of him. His hand found your thigh under the table and patted it before his attention shifted to his food.

Wanda’s gaze moved between the two of you. A soft smile lit her face and when she made eye contact with you she waggled her brows. You rolled your eyes and pointed to her plate telling her to eat.

***

Wanda stayed long enough to play a round of cards after dinner. She won, of course; she always did. If you didn’t know better, you’d swear she could read minds.  Clint walked her out to her car and you started cleaning the kitchen. Granted there wasn’t much to clean, but you’d rather get it done now.

You were drying the pan he’d used for the bacon when arms wrapped around your waist and he pressed a kiss to the side of your neck. You tilted your head to allow him more access and he took full advantage. You sat the pan on the counter and turned in his arms with a grin. “Hello to you, too.”

He returned your grin and tilted his head toward stairway. “How about that swim?”

You bounced on your feet. “Yes, please.”

He chuckled and pushed you in the direction of the stairs. “I’ll meet you there.”

He headed up to his room while you went down to the pool. You left your suits in a little room off to the side as it was so much more convenient. It also kept you from having to move through the airconditioned house in your suit. The heated pool was an indoor/outdoor and Clint kept the pool room warmer than the rest of the house so people didn’t get chilled when they got out of the water.

You grabbed the blue suit that he had mentioned earlier but then your eye fell on the black one Wanda had forced you to buy the last time you’d gone shopping together. You held it up and grinned. It was a one piece, if you could call it that with it’s plunging neckline and laced sides. At the time you’d thought it far too revealing. But now it was just about perfect.

When you left the changing room, Clint’s lean body was already slicing through the water as he swam the length of the pool. You watched until he finished his laps and brought his head up. His gaze fell on you and gave you a smile which faded as his eyes ran over you from head to toe. He swiped his hands down his face, wiping away the water and took another look. His tongue darted out to lick his lips.

He cleared his throat. “I don’t remember that one.”

You glanced down before looking back at him with wide eyes. “Don’t you like it? I could always change.”

“Don’t you dare.”

You smirked and walked over to sit on the edge of the pool. You’d barely had time to settle when Clint wrapped his hands around your waist and lifted you into the water. You placed your hands on his shoulders to keep yourself steady. His fingers instantly found the holes made by the laces on the sides of your suit and rubbed gently over your skin. He leaned forward to kiss you. You were so caught up in him, it took you a couple of minutes to realize he was slowly walking the two the length of the pool.

You ducked under the divider that split the pool between inside and outside. Clint grasped your hand and tugged you to the far end. He sat on a bench along the wall of the pool and turned you before pulling you against him. A nudge at your chin had you looking up at a sky full of stars. You gasped at the sight and the cool air that caressed your shoulders. You lowered yourself into the water a bit more and leaned against Clint’s chest. He wrapped his arms around you and the two of you sat in silence enjoying the night together.

A yawn had you settling more firmly against Clint. He ran his hand across your belly and under the edge of the opening in the front of your suit. There was nothing sensual in the movement, more just him trying to touch more skin. You turned in his lap and laid your head on his chest. “I should go before I get any more tired.”

He hummed. “Or you could just stay here.”

You looked at him in surprise and he smiled at you.

“It’s not like you don’t have your own room here.”

It was true, you did. The guest room beside Wanda’s had long ago been designated as yours. It even held extra clothes and things you’d left behind on one of your many overnights. Disappointment settled in your chest however that that’s what he’d meant.

He chuckled and squeezed your hip. “Do you really think I’d get any sleep with you down the hall? I don’t think so, beautiful. You’re still welcome to stay but only if you stay in my bed.”

“That sounds like a much better idea, Mr. Barton.”

[obsidiancreates]

Not The Usual Kind Of Haunted Manor

(Did I write the prompt I meant to respond to? Nope. Did I write the fic I meant to write? Nope. Did I go to sleep like I should have many hours ago? Nope. Did I write a really long crossover fic for two of my favorite YouTube channels? You bet your ass I did.)

“Okay okay! Johnny, I’ve got the camera out!”

“Oh, are we rolling sir?”

“Yeah, yeah, do the intro!”

“I- oh dear, I’ve forgotten it again.”

“Johnny!”

“I’m sorry sir!”

“Well just- just make one up, I guess.”

“Alright, um... HELLO! Hello all our... little... bites of P.I.E...”

“Oh, gosh. That’s terrible.”

“You put me under pressure!”

“Okay, just keep going! Explain why we’re here!”

“Ah, yes, right! Um, I am Johnny Toast, and I’m here with my friend Johnny Ghost, and today, we are investigating this haunted mansion. Ooooooh, spooky!”

“That’s good, that’s good!”

“Yes, today is a truly paranormal adventure! This place, known as... um...”

“Oh, uh, Markiplier Manor.”

“Yes! Markiplier Manor, is said to be extremely haunted!”

“Okay, and... cut!”

“Did I do alright, sir?”

“Yeah! I mean I’ll have to edit out a lot of stuff in post but I’m- I’m sure it’ll be fine! Now, let’s go inside and get some cool creepy footage!”

“Right, sir.”

Johnny Ghost lowered the camera and walked into the manor, Toast following close behind. ghost looked around, and then sneezed. “Ugh! It’s so dusty!”

“Well, it is haunted,” Toast said, walking over to a broken mirror in order to inspect it. 

“Why do haunted places always have to be all dusty and gross? Why don’t the ghost’s just clean up a bit?” Ghost looked down at the floor. His eyes fell on a dark stain marring the wood. Then they traveled up, to a balcony just above. He shivered. He had a very bad feeling about this place.

“It would be pretty awful to be dead and still have to do chores.” Toast peered closer at the mirror. Something... it almost looked like something was moving inside of it...

“I guess so.” Ghost spotted the staircase leading to the balcony. “I’ll be right back, just going to to shoot some b-roll!”

“Alright, sir.” Something was definitely moving in the glass...

Ghost walked up the stairs. Come to think of it, they really shouldn’t have lead to that balcony. They just weren’t in the right spot. But somehow, they lead directly to it. 

Another dark stain greeted him, this time splattered on the wall. He got out the camera and filmed it for a second, and then he filmed the hallway. He kept filming as he descended the staircase. “Johnny! I found some more blood! I think you should stand in front of it... while you... talk...”

Ghost crinkled his eyebrows, confused. “This isn’t the same room from before...” he mumbled. 

He now stood at a... a different front entrance? But there was no mirror, and no Johnny.

He stepped off of the staircase and into the front hall. To his left was what was maybe a living room, and to his right was the front door. He couldn’t tell if it was the same front door, but it was a front door. In front of him was a different staircase, one that curved a bit on it’s way up. 

“... Johnny?” he called, nerves making his voice quiet. “Johnny?” he tried again, louder.

Nothing.

“Okay. No, sure, this is fine.” He straightened his posture and put on his most confident voice. “I am Johnny Ghost, paranormal investigator extraordinaire! It’ll take a lot more than weird moving rooms to scare me!”

He turned around and was met by the face of a rotting corpse.

“AHHHHHHHH!” He ran to the curvy staircase and ascended, still screaming. He ran into a room at the end of the upstairs hallway and slammed the door shut. “Holy crap,” he breathed. He leaned his head against the door. “Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap.”

He stood up straight again and cleared his throat. “Ahem! Right! Not scared at all! Professional ghost hunter. I���m fine.” He turned around to look at the room he was in, and his shoulders sagged. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

The room was decorated for a seance. A table stood in the center, adorned with a spooky tablecloth, tarot cards, and a crystal ball. A crumbled piece of paper lay on the ground beside on of the two chairs, small but somehow attention grabbing. Dark green curtains covered a window behind the chair with the crumpled paper.

Ghost pursed his lips. “You know what? Fine! Sure! Why not? Of course I ended up here.” He checked to see if the camera, which he’d somehow kept hold of the whole time, was still recording.

It was.

He panned it around the room. “I mean, might as well while I’m here,” he muttered. 

Then, for a split second, two figures sat in the chairs.

One was a woman, glowing red, watching the other figure intently.

The other figure was... human, that’s all Ghost could tell. It had a face, and eyes, and a nose, and a mouth, but they weren’t... they weren’t proper features. They didn’t make a person’s face, they just made... a face. Anyone’s face, no-one’s face. They’re eyes were closed, and they seemed to be concentrating on something.

They only lasted for a second before they blinked out of existence. In that time Ghost jumped back and started to yell, but it died in his mouth when they went away. 

“What the heck...”

Toast put his hands on his hips. “Hello? Hellooo in there? I can see you moving around.”

The shadow in the mirror stopped, and... well, he couldn’t be certain, but he was pretty sure it turned to stare at him.

“Ah! Hello! I am Johnny Toast, of P.I.E! Me and my friend are here investigating all the reports of hauntings! Are you a friendly ghost?”

The shadow didn’t speak. It didn’t move. It just stared.

“I’ll... take that as a yes. Um, can you speak?”

It stayed still for a moment. Then it shook it’s head. 

“Oh, darn. It would have been a lot better if you could. Well, may I ask how long you’ve been trapped here?”

The shadow took a moment, and then shrugged. It seemed almost like it was on a delay, like it wasn’t experiencing time the same way Toast was. 

“You don’t know? Oh dear.” Toast pat his pockets. “One moment, sorry.” He pulled out a small pink notebook and a pen with a macaroni shaped clip. He wrote down a few notes. The shadow watched patiently.

“Right then! Sorry about that, I want to make sure I remember this for when Sir gets back. So, did you live here, when you were alive?”

The shadow shook it’s head. 

“No? So why were you here?”

The shadow traced a triangle shape in the air over it’s head. Toast blinked, confused. The shadow repeated the motion, paused, and then shimmied it’s shoulders. 

“A... party?” Toast guessed.

The shadow nodded.

“Oh! Was it a good party?”

He couldn’t see the shadow’s eyes, but he could feel the condescending glare. A no to that question, then. 

“I should have guess as much, I suppose. Did you die on accident?”

The shadow stayed still for a lot longer this time. Toast began to wonder if the mirror had lost connection. Maybe Ghost Skype was having some issues. 

Then the shadow shrugged.

“You... don’t know?”

It held up both it’s hands, palms open flat and facing up. It raised one palm, and lowered the other, then repeated in reverse.

“Both at once?” Toast tilted his head. 

The shadow nodded. 

He wrote it down. “Oh my... what happened here?”

Ghost had left the creepy seance room, The layout of the house was even more confusing to him than why Spooker still worked for P.I.E. Hallways lead to more hallways, doors on the first floor opened to doors on the second and vice versa, windows were on walls that should have lead to the outside...

He opened another door. He stepped through, and found himself standing by a pool.

He was still filming. This episode would for sure get good ratings. Then maybe he and Toast could stop making this dumb TV show and go back to actual ghost hunting. If only...

He looked at the pool. “Okay... Ahg!”

A body appeared in the pool. It wore a red robe and stared at him, unblinking. Ghost gave a little wave, unsure of what to do.

Then the body vanished. Ghost nodded shakily. “Okay. Okay.”

He felt an arm sling around his shoulder. He jerked away and point the camera, shouting yet again. A man in some kind of... old timey military uniform was looking at him. He had a big, bushy mustache, and round yellow-tinted glasses. 

“Life needs a bit of madness, as I always say!” the man said. Then he faded away, though Ghost’s fear remained firmly fixed on his face.

“Okay, no! No, I’ve had enough of this place, and it’s creepy... hologram ghost, or whatever! JOHNNY!” He ran back inside. “JOHNNY!”

He ran down a hallway. And then suddenly he wasn’t in a hallway, he was in a small library or office room. Paper and books littered the desk, and a corkboard with cards and yard tacked up on it immediately drew his attention.

“What the heck is all this?” he whispered. He put the camera down so he could look closer. 

There were a few cards that seemed to be about... whoever had lived in the house. All the names were scratched out, as well as the faces, leaving only the people’s titles as identifiers.

The Actor, The Mayor, The Colonel, The DA, The Seer, The Butler, The Chef...

Clearly there had been a detective as well, given the amount of information the board held. 

Arrest records. Personality profiles. Lists of motives, opportunities, possible accomplices... 

One Post-It had a drawing of someone dabbing. Ghost decided to ignore that.

He turned to the desk. An old typewriter was barely visable under all the paper. He picked one up and read it. 

‘Don’t trust The Seer, Don’t trust The Seer, Don’t trust The Seer-’

The sentence repeated itself, the only thing written on the page.

The only thing written on any page.

Ghost dropped the paper like it was on fire, grabbed the camera, and ran out.

Toast looked up from his notepad. “So, you attended a party here a number of years ago, were accidentally mur-”

The shadow frantically shook it’s head and put a finger to where it’s lips should have been.

“Oh, okay then, um... accidentally killed?”

The shadow nodded. 

“Right. You became trapped in this mirror somehow, and are now stuck here. I’ve got that all right?”

It nodded again.

“Did someone trap you here?”

Another nod.

“Was that an accident too?”

The shadow stared at him, and Toast felt a sort of sadness coming from it. It slowly shook it’s head, the feeling of despair becoming much stronger. 

“Oh... it was someone you knew, I’m guessing?” Toast said softly.

One quick nod.

“I’m so sorry.”

The shadow shrugged.

“I wish there was some way for me to know what really happened,” Toast said. “Is there maybe... a journal or something, laying around?”

It shook it’s head.

“Darn it. More yes or no questions, I suppose.”

Ghost stopped.

He’d somehow gotten back to the balcony that had started his whole ordeal.

Now three people stood before him, though none of them seemed to see that he was there.

One was the military man from before, that must be The Colonel. One was the featureless figure, but when he peered closely he could see a pin with the letters DA on they’re chest. One was... okay, that had to be the detective, he was wearing a funny detective hat and everything.

The Colonel and The Detective shouted at each other, both point guns at the other. The DA was standing beside The Colonel, pulling at his sleeve, seemingly begging him to stop. Ghost couldn’t tell what was being said. It all sounded muffled, and echoy, like they were in a cave and their mouths were full of cotton.

The Colonel shot The Detective, who slid down the wall, leaving behind the dark stain Ghost had seen before. The DA tried to wrestle the gun away from The Colonel, but it went off, shooting a bullet into the DA’s stomach. The Da started to fall back, and then fell off the balcony. The Colonel reached out, trying to grab onto them, and this time Ghost could understand the words that were shouted.

“It was an accident!”

There was the sound of a crack, and then the scene vanished.

Ghost stood, mouth agape. 

That was only part of the story, he knew. There was still The Actor, The Mayor, The Seer, The Butler, and The Chef.

What had happened to them?

He was snapped out of his thoughts when a familiar voice reached his ears.

“JOHNNY!”

He ran over to the railing and leaned over. Toast appeared below him a moment later. 

“There you are sir! You’ve been very quiet!”

“Johnny, you will not believe what I’ve just been through! I’ll tell you on the way home, we’re getting out of here!”

“Alright, come down sir. I just need a moment.”

Ghost looked over at the staircase and squinted at it suspiciously. Then he looked down again.

Yes, there was a bloodstain on the floor. Yes, he was pretty sure that crack had been the sound of a breaking neck.

But... he really didn’t trust those stairs. 

He jumped up over the railing and braced himself.

“OW!”

Toast looked away from the mirror. “Are you alright sir?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine! I think I just broke both my ankles, and I can taste my own socks, but I’m fine!”

“Oh dear.” He turned back to the mirror. “Thank you for all your information. I’ll try to visit again another day and see if I cn help get you out of that mirror.”

The shadow shook it’s head.

“What? Why not?”

The shadow pointed at him, then at itself, and then put it’s hand on the glass. It tried to pull away, but it acted like it was...

“Stuck? I’ll... I’ll get stuck here? Like you?”

The shadow nodded. 

“Well... if you insist. Ghost might send one of our interns when he hears that, though. Fair warning if he does, Spooker can be a bit... um... loud. And not um, not the smartest.”

The shadow nodded. Then it waved. 

“Right, yes. Goodbye to you too.” Toast waved, then walked out into the front hall.

“-and then the DA fell over the railings and down to the ground. I think that’s where the blood stain came from.” Ghost kept his eyes on the road as he drove and spoke, but they flicked over to Toast for a second to see his reaction to the tale.

Toast nodded, deep in thought. “I wonder who the person in the mirror was. Could have been any of them.”

“I mean, only the DA didn’t have a real face. Maybe it was them.”

“Maybe...” Toast turned around and looked at the camera sitting in the backseat. “Do you think we should air this one, sir?”

“What? Why wouldn’t we?”

Toast looked at him. “Something just feels very off about the whole thing. More... serious than our other cases. I don’t think it fits.”

Ghost scoffed. Then he thought about having to edit that footage, having to put Toast’s voice over telling the story over the shots of the never-ending hallways, having to relive that whole experience again through the screen...

“Maybe not,” he relented. “But that mean you’ll have to get another load from your grandmother.”

“Oh, I’m sure it’ll be alright with her,” Toast said.

They both fell into silence for a few miles.

Finally, Toast broke it. “Can I drive for a bit?”

“Wh- no! I don’t want the tires all covered in roadkill again!”

“I got that fixed!”

You got- how do you fix being a roadkill magnet?!”

They lapsed into their usual bickering as they drove farther away from the cursed mansion, not knowing how lucky they were that they hadn’t met the other attendees of that party from so, so long ago. 

Or rather, what the other attendees had become. 

[pigeoncentric]

i did an A:TLA rewatch and took notes because that’s just what i do, and here’s the notes if anyone wants to see my thoughts

i haven't watched atla since about a year before korra started airing, so like, around 2011. i should also mention that i never watched korra through to the end, but i guess i'll do that after this. if i feel like it. i do know that the biggest bottles were never popped

i have such a clear memory of the first episode. it must've been on nickelodeon pretty often, even though when it was airing, i only watched it occasionally. i remember they also aired the library episode super often.

aang's voice is so tiny and sweet

i gotta turn off my dumb adult brain and put my dumb kid brain back on so i can better appreciate the nickelodeonness of it all

sokka and zuko's first interaction.......

zuko's intimidating approach and then his tiny teen voice

SOKKA AND ZUKO'S SECOND INTERACTION............

zuko's like "i'm going home." with aang. he must be feeling an incredible mixture of feelings, thinking he has the avatar and can reclaim his Honor. but he also must be terrified to go back, and in disbelief... fortunately he's not going home like he said and there are even more confused feelings in between

i just remembered that iroh's voice actor dies between seasons :(

thinking a lot about dante basco... no thoughts in particular, just a lot of them... and how he shipped zutara lmao

"my troubles cannot be soaked away!"

hei bai looks like a ben 10

mounts list (added to as i progressed through the series): zuko's rhinos. earth armored ostriches. metal noshing mole. north pole goatyak. azula and friends' fur geckos. sabertooth moose lion if you're not a wimp. appa-sized beetle. moose with aquatic features. Eel Hound.

you can't out-mom-friend katara. even when she's yelling and being reckless

it's true... airbenders are weak to nets.

the n*tfli* captions are making several mistakes. eat my ass ne*f*ix and hire me to do flawless captioning instead you dumb fucks

YEAH! even by episode 13 in season 1 we already know zuko is a good boy! well also by episode 12. and earlier. well i've seen the series before.

i've just learned that zach tyler eisen is the voice of aang and i have to give him huge props for having the perfect voice. i pay a lot of attention to voice acting, usually in a nitpicky way, and i've never heard an english voice actor whose voice is perfect on the level of ikue ohtani... and when he was like 12 years old. incredible. i'm not being remotely sarcastic

i gotta be 100% honest. i had completely forgotten the existence of zhao and that he's actually a pretty important character, at least in season 1. also his voice actor is pretty good. generally the voice acting is good in this show, and i'm picky.

god the animation where aang makes one catapult catapult the other is so good. also appa just picked up and grabbed a guy. with his fist. wait how many toes does appa have? is that 18 in total? also appa has scutes on his ventrum. anyway i love that appa can pick up and grab a guy but generally chooses not to. gives it more weight when he does choose to

zuko tells turtle seals to be quiet and then touches them unkindly :(

zuko busted out of katara's ice orb instead of melting it :\

zuko put his hood up like iroh told him to but aang just has his naked bald head in the snowy cold :(

seeing zhao grab and bag the moon spirit fish made me feel sick. such a foul act

god. the quality rope. i noticed sokka mention it and was like, "was this a chekhov's gun or a red herring" and then a few minutes later there was a pointed pan over to the quality rope.

anyway examining the quality of the voice acting here leads me to a thesis i might gather evidence to prove: american english voice acting for cartoons is far higher quality than american english voice acting for anime dubs. or is that just something obvious that everyone already agrees on

anyway anyway, the episode ended without the quality rope being put to use. unless i missed it, which is entirely possible.

jesus i heard azula's first lines and got an instant flashback to all the tumblr drama about grey delisle and her tumblr account and how she pretended it wasn't hers or something let's just erase all of this from my brain right now

this is kind of out of nowhere and borderline inappropriate but i'm glad characters in avatar are illustrated with nipples when they're shirtless... it always disturbs me a tiny bit when shirtless characters are depicted with zero nipple, not even a hint of nipple. (Aladdin.) not just because it implicitly stigmatizes something everyone has, but also because this scenario always plays in my head where it's like, a little kid sees a cartoon character without nipples and they think, "so i'm not supposed to have these..." and they start feeling weird and bad about themself... all you need to depict a nipple is a single unobtrusive dot. nothing visually offensive or explicit about it.

even to an audience who doesn't understand any cultural context, you can't not see the significance of zuko and iroh cutting off their topknots...

fandom seems to see sokka as the silliest one when in fact at least 40% of his entire role as a character is to be the tsukkomi

underrated moment: "you've got an elbow leech." "WHERE?! WHERE?!"

zuko should be a good boy and only steal if it's from pirates

stealy zuko stealing money and buying iroh a teapot !

god i forgot what a tiny baby voice toph has... so tiny

zuko trying really really hard but doing a bad job hammering (tears)

azula set up zuko and mai for a lucky sukebe...

when zuko's mom told him not to forget who he is, she didn't mean to remember that he's a prince and an heir as he revealed to the unsuspecting earth kingdom village. she meant to remember that he's someone with at least the base level of empathy and compassion, unlike most of his immediate family...

i still think aang's voice actor did a great job but i bet it sucks to be a young boy doing an excellent young boy voice and then when you grow up a little and presumably experience some puberty you just Cannot do the young boy voice anymore. hopefully in most cases where that happens, it's at least not abrupt

placing a bet that the writer for episode s2:e10 (the library) is different than most of the other episodes. i don't like it very much, at least in the first several minutes. if it's a name i recognize from the credits of several other episodes, i might be a bit disappointed in them. seriously, there's one stinker after another. and with such a great concept of an episode...

i didn't recognize the name of the guy who wrote this episode so i thought i was right but no, he wrote a bunch of episodes. must have been off his game for this one... either that or i'm in a very unforgiving mood and don't realize it... also when i went on wikipedia to look at who wrote which atla episodes, i learned that the animation for the show was split between two animation studios, and they're both korean. ah, i guess that doesn't mean all the animation took place overseas, as DM movie has a headquarters in the US. according to wikipedia.

oh, they're BUZZards... i get it... i gotcha.

aang with a vengeance is both scary and sad to see. but he does understand that property damage is nothing compared to a life

people who love azula are the exact same as people who love vriska: [comment redacted]

they have american birds in the avatar world. i keep hearing an eastern wood-peewee going "pee-pee-uwee" in the background :3

the serpent's pass seems geologically implausible.

sokka should really get face paint all over his face when he kisses suki. or like, the cartoonish image of when someone is covered in lipstick lip smacks, but it should be suki's makeup color

appa's been through so much and now he has to meet a boarcupine?!?! fortunately he still knows how to pick up and grab... but still :(

he touched appa's scutes and read them like a palm...

longshot translated his meaningful stares into out-loud words for katara and friends

zuko forgot that azula always lies :(

zuko should know that being redeemed in his father's eyes is the opposite of what he wants...

i LOVE aang's passionate tsungi horn dance

there are spring peepers in the fire nation

god the dripping of the rotten clams is so excessive

you know how ultrasonic humidifiers can create water vapor without heating it into steam, by vibrating it super fast? let's try that with waterbending, it'll be cool

two different bad guys have been skipped across the water like a rock

i love the fake time lapse of cleaning the river... and it showed how with pollution in real life, stopping the source of the pollution is not enough. it needs to be removed as well

sokka deserves LOTS of credit just for being able to handle a boomerang.

GOD THE SLOW PAN OVER THE BEAUTIFUL SWORD (in 3:4)

sokka also deserves LOTS of credit for being able to admit he doesn't know everything.

i managed to forget that zuko turns his back on iroh, while remembering that at some point, iroh gets buff

the voice of sokka's master is the voice of the boulder. right? right? no? are you kidding me? i suck at this

seems like kissing azula would have immediate consequences, like something melting

zuko is poorly socialized

zuko still forgot that azula always lies. even when she's being somewhat humanized in an episode like this.

so avatar roku had earthly attachments he did not let go of, presumably. such as his wife. did he have unfettered access to the avatar state? that's what i would ask him during this expositionfest if i was aang.

so sozin could do heatbending... that's amazing. i think i missed that the first time around.

that's right, zuko came back and his hair is long enough, but he hasn't recreated his topknot.

hawky is the only atla animal that poops on camera.

if you're gonna bend sweat, you might as well bend spit, and it's a little easier to obtain

wait so... is combustion man also a heatbender? i'll have to look into it later. [looked into it later: the avatar wiki has termed it "combustionbending?" are you shitting me?]

ooh it's the bloodbending episode! i'm pumped.

someone made a post about how when they watched this show and they were a kid they were thinking about how the characters are hot, and now they're watching as an adult and the characters are all tiny children... that's how i've been feeling. also season 3 episode 8 aang's voice sounds a little bit pubertous.

anyway damn this bloodbending episode is outright traumatic. good shit

oh, now zuko's topknot is back.

appa's armor covers each individual toe <:3c

i seriously misremembered the course of zuko's character development. and the timeline of the invasion in general. but now i understand that zuko has to tell his dad to eat shit face to face.

watching zuko's "zuko here" practice speech hurts 100% as much as it did the first time i saw it. and when he's delivering it to the gaang it's impossible to watch. i didn't put my hands on my head-- they just went there unbidden.

i kinda can't help picturing dante basco's face every time i hear zuko talk. the whole time. it's sometimes not optimal to know the faces of voice actors. especially when you're like me and you're not good at pushing out unwanted mental images.

what the fuck, combustion man? he just loves assassination so much you can't take back any orders. also i can't help but imagine that if you put a slice across his third eye his combustion would be fully inhibited. well i guess that's not a problem anymore.

i like that the gaang are a variety of heights, and that they're all noticeably shorter than most of the adults they meet. it just makes it feel realistic

if it was a US max security prison and prisoners were escaping they'd probably just fucking murder them

i love how when mai starts up the gondola again and azula is like "what is she DOING!" and ty lee just makes an "iunno" noise

tfw your best friend abandons you because you wouldn't let her murder her own brother

chit seng didn't get to free his girlfriend and best buddy :(

funny how azula seems almost docile when she's getting everything she wants. typical narcissist. well ok not the least bit typical.

sokka ate the rose. i remembered this scene Too clearly. but i didn't remember that.

um... was that the full moon? when katara bloodbent that guy? i should've looked at the sky... i went back and looked and still didn't see if it was the full moon. maybe the wiki knows. i don't care enough to look it up properly.

i was wondering when the melon lord would show up

none of the teens understand the obvious solution of defeating the fire lord by beating him INTO SUBMISSION (or oblivion) instead of killing him. just like in every anime fight ever. it's over when you acknowledge you've lost or you can't fight anymore, not when you die. (for the #1 best example of ending a fight the right way, see the way luffy defeats crocodile.)

so i know aang's gonna defeat the fire lord by essentially hitting him with a forced purification beam to the face and make him realize the errors of his ways or something. the fun part is how we get there

bumi bending entire houses through the air

aw i forgot the turtle island didn't have a cute face.

jyong jyong firebent a jet platform to fly around on?!

i guess the firelord can fly around like bakugou katsuki

i forgot that aang took away his firebending... and sokka hops up to him like "well, look at you, buster"

i'm glad i decided to watch this again. even if i didn't do a great job paying attention tbh. well i did spend a bit of time carving a little wooden spoon while i was watching. anyway i was thinking i wouldn't move right on to korra but rather read some of the atla comics that i know exist but have never read whatsoever. i wonder if i can find them in some kind of library...

  i found the comics illegally on the internet and read a whole bunch (up until the end of the "zuko finds his mom" arc). i didn't write my thoughts down as i was reading, so i don't remember them. that's how my worthless brain works. i do remember that i found the comics satisfactory as an accurate extension of the show, and that i feel ambivalent about how azula is written/treated in the comics.

i don’t know if i feel like rewatching korra yet.