#which apparently is what the game comes to when it's looking for something categorized under “blocks”

[rekkandevar]

kaiman dorohedoro minecraft model (for a hermitcraft-style custom head item)

if anyone is interested i will provide link + instructions

[heli0s-writes]

lights up*

A/N: Stucky (primarily Steve)/Reader. 2k words of idkwhatthisisi’msorry. There was a prompt from six months ago that I wrote this for but I lost the message and I can’t remember! All mistakes are my own, please stop reading if you are not 18+

brooklyn after dark masterlist

You wake up in scattered shock.

Knee-jerk reaction to fast hands sliding between your thighs, fingers carelessly ticking sensitive skin.

You wake up to a groggy voice, slurred with sleep and raspy-raw.

“Baby,” it croaks from between your legs, “Honey, sweetheart, sugar. Please, please, please let me eat your pussy.”

Wha—

A few disbelieving blinks as you scrabble for your bearings—can’t see shit—still dark—head throbbing.

“Oh god, I wanna sosososo bad,” and then hands are between your knees, spreading your legs apart. “So… damn... tasty. Uh-huh… Come to daddy.”

Who the fuck is—damn it, Bucky.

In the dead hour of four-something when nothing should be moving so intentionally, an unsteady moan tumbles out of him when he starts groping for your ass.

“Buck!” You whisper, kicking your leg to shake him off. Grabbing the covers with one hand, you reach under with the other, swatting his head and trying to get a firm hold on him. Slippery fucking man.

He pauses for a second before his body goes limp, half hanging off the foot of the bed and you groan at his weight. Idiot boy. Two hundred pounds of horny somnambulist dropping like an anchor on your poor legs.

Fiddling now with how to get him back up to his regular spot, you try to do it quietly, the warmth radiating next to your left shoulder a compelling incentive. Even with your wits barely about you, you know better than to wake—

“Whassit? Whas goin’ on?”

Steve. Ah.

“Nothing,” you sigh, reaching over and stroking his arm absently, one foot tapping against Bucky’s waist to urge him upward. “He’s just sleep-talking again.”

Steve makes a groggy noise of comprehension. “Sleep-talking or sleep-fucking?”

“Just sleeping now. Ugh… didn’t mean to wake you.”

He’d come in late again—meetings and paperwork keeping him well after hours. Not even able to do it from home, which would have been nice. At least here you could make sure he was eating, or drinking enough water, or at least be in the presence of good company.

Instead, you and Buck watched a movie, took a few rounds of shots (because he likes the taste and how you look dancing all over the coffee table), fooled around in the kitchen, and turned in around two—Steve nowhere in sight. Some jobs were Captain-Only, which meant you’d have to make peace with being useless.

That’s generally not a task that goes over well. The amount of untamed energy Bucky exudes without Steve’s guidance is… close to being categorized as a natural disaster and trying to stay up with him is always a double-edged sword. Lots of fun, sure, but he requires less sleep than you do and can finagle you into getting piss drunk with a single smirk.  

“Wish you’d been more responsible.” Bone-tired and Steve’s still bossy. His arm is heavy as it snakes over your tummy. “You know he needs direction.”

“Hey, I tried.”

“Issat right? That why your panties’re on the counter? Shirt in the sink, too. Come home close to four and still gotta clean up after the two of you.”

His raspy breath tickles, plump lips crushed just below your ear—enough to start a chain reaction of shudders.

“Go back to sleep,” you huff, embarrassed. It was only a few hours ago so your head’s still a bit fuzzy—vague memory of playful touches before hearing, hop up, baby, from Bucky. And you, tittering and zealous the whole way, kissing him like he’d never been kissed before.

YouTube blinking on the T.V., stuck on some ad because the streaming’s a snail’s pace from when Steve set up the internet and tried to pinch pennies at the same time. Bucky’s specially crafted “Wine, Dine, and Sixty-Nine” playlist refusing to load even half a song afterwards so neither of you could spare your neighbors from hearing all the noises.

Hopefully the laughter was loudest, and not the primal fucking, or the crashing when you slipped off the counter and knocked Bucky on his ass.  

You giggle at that. Years and years together and some nights still feel brand new.

“Have fun without me?”

There’s no real jealousy in Steve’s voice, but there is greed behind the question. A single night away and he acts like he’s never been kissed either.

Your eyes start fluttering when his fingers curl around your hipbone. Je-sus. Hell. It’s too late—early—for this.

You grumble his name, asking him to save it for a couple more hours when your brain doesn’t feel pried free, but, Captain-Only mode activated and he’s not deterred. A bloodhound on a fresh trail.

The hand on your hip turns inward and you’re suddenly aware of him pressed against your body, that hot line of him, pulsing on your upper thigh. He tilts forward, one knee rubbing up your leg. Bucky stirs a little and makes another declaration about how he’s fit for the CEO position of Eating Your Ass, but nothing more after that.

“He do you good?” Steve wonders, apparently not giving a fuck about whether Bucky’s dead or alive down there and instead only worried about repositioning you, rolling you on your side, “That why you’re so happy to get me out of the house? So you two can fool around unchecked as much as you want?”

“Steve, you know damn well—"

His hand slips around the side of your neck, four thick fingers drumming over the ridges of your throat. “Watch your mouth,” he whispers, “before you get yourself into any more trouble.”

He gets mean without enough sleep. And no one would ever guess, but other than working over some poor punching bag that’ll never see the light of day after he gets his hands on it, Captain America likes to fuck it out. You and Buck have properly come out of a few sessions barely alive, feeling like two ends of a slinky that’s taken one too many tumbles down a flight of stairs.

You squirm as he palms your bottom with his free hand, kneading the bare flesh a flimsy pair of sleeping shorts can’t cover.

“Gotta be quiet,” he tells you gently, “Can’t wake him, can we.” Christ help you. What a time to play a game. You mumble under your breath, “Do I have a choice?”

A prod at your already sore entrance, and Steve says, annoyingly convinced, “I think you’ve already made your choice.”

He stills for a second when Bucky flops around on the mattress and then he starts pressing his mouth to your back, your shoulder, other hand holding you steady with expertise. It’s Steve’s favorite position when he wants to be in charge—you, writhing and turned away, usually leaned about 50 degrees and pawing at Bucky’s chest—this morning, feebly snatching sheets instead.

It doesn’t take any buildup. He’s achingly ready; you’re willingly wet. Clothes moved just enough out of the way and his two fingers slide upward, pushing barely to spread you before he quickly replaces it with something much thicker. It’s only been a few seconds. He’s too fast for you to get a word in edgewise, your brain still muddled, body cooperative.

“Huh,” Steve mumbles, slowly feeling his way into position, “A bit fucked loose, aren’t you?”

“Steve,” you hiss in reply, clenching up reflexively the same time mortification bursts across your scrunched- up face. “Don’t say that.”

“Hush, baby.”

“I’m trying—”

“Try harder.” And he’s evil incarnate, you swear. Satan himself packaged up in the neat body of a demigod. He rolls his hips slowly until the tops of his thighs are pressed against your ass, fingers holding so tight you think he’s going to spear right into bone. “Stay still or you’re gonna knee Buck in the cheek.”

You twist your head around, instead, shaking your chin free from his hand, hoping that once he sees your pitiful expression, he’ll find it in his heart to maybe not pound you into oblivion with bells on.

Of course, Steve’s not looking anywhere but down the line of your back and further to where he’s opening you up, bottom lip tucked into his teeth.

You constantly rib him about how he’s making up for all the years he spent with the two working eyes of a mole so now he’ll break his neck to watch. Bucky’s confirmed it multiple times to Steve’s chagrin, cackling at the way Steve goes purple defending himself. You love the stories they tell and retell; you try to spend most your time making up for all those years you weren’t there to find out.

Who isn’t in this relationship? Violently horny like teenagers, the three of you, spending every idle hour mishandling for each other like it’s the first time. Excitement primeval like animals in heat, apparently instinctual enough for one of you to do it in his sleep. Years and years and it still feels brand new.

The bed’s rocking surprisingly moderately for Steve’s usual pace, and it’s a bit heartwarming to know that he’s doing it because he really doesn’t want to wake Bucky, but he ramps up his game. He starts whispering again, meaner, hotter, the damn mouth on Steve Rogers continuing to give you hell this early morning.

He pinches your nipple hard, letting you gasp at the brief sting before he goes back up to your chin, your mouth, and then he puts the entire hand over it.

“Quiet. Not another fucking word out of you. Gotta teach you how to behave this morning, don’t I?” He’s working himself up, working you over, even pulling you back on him by the hips and then wiggling you up and down on him like he’s adjusting you on a saddle. Motherfucker.

Your toes curl, knees grinding, legs folding up to get simultaneously closer and away from him and it feels—it feels so excruciatingly good—the effortless glide of his cock, the burn of friction dragging itself out the more you wriggle. Whatever indelicate sounds falling out of your mouth are getting mashed back in, Steve ramming himself into your body, shaking your brain further loose.

He’s probably louder than he intends to be—you know how he gets when he’s close— bombs could be dropping two feet away and Steve Rogers would hear nothing but the roar of his own wanting, chasing it until he crashes into bits. You’re chasing too, both hands clamped around his wrist, arching your back to near breaking.

“Yeah,” he rasps out, “That’s it, that’s good, baby. Ugnn—back up on me, stay—right there.”

More uneven jerking, he releases your face and starts rubbing your clit, saying, you like it like this? Like me givin’ it to you good like this? And you’re shaking in his arms, the both of you tipping over the edge.

-

“I wasn’t serious,” Steve says later after a few moments, lips all soft and gentle on your neck, rather than fierce like before, “Bout you bein’—” you can feel him shrugging, “Y’know… fucked loose.” He whispers the last part like it’s a sin.

You snort, “You turning decent on me? After railing me to death?”

“You sound pretty lively to me.” He pokes your side, “I just… woke up and remembered how much I missed you last night.”

“I’m not going anywhere. You’ve got both of us here—shit!”

“Steeeeeve,” and the sound of it slaps both you back to reality. Sleep-smashed, more tipsy than any alcohol could make him, Bucky’s giggles break the steady pattern of muffled conversation. His vibranium hand pats around for a new destination, undeterred by the disruption of his previous mission.

You can’t believe it. He’s still asleep.

“Steeeevie,” Bucky mewls again, “Lemme— lemme suck your dick, sweetheart.”

What a menace. Your shoulders start quivering as you poorly hold it back, pfffftppblffpt’s kickstarting Steve into a tizzy right alongside you.

Bursting laughter finally wakes him up. Bucky yelps once, twice, flailing like a cat caught unawares and rolls himself right off the goddamn bed.

Two hundred pounds of newly conscious pervert wallops the hardwood floor and you’re sure the entire apartment complex—if they didn’t hear the ruckus last night—certainly heard it this morning.

[depizan]

Have a whole lot of rambling about D&D style alignment, morality, and the Force. Because it is apparently random brain dump day.

Under a cut for obvious reasons of length.

There are a lot of problems with D&D style alignment, but I feel like it’s become such a popular topic of discussion even outside of role playing games both because people love categorizing things and because it bounces off of something real – how people think the world works does effect how they act. It isn’t the only thing that does, of course, but there’s something there, if not quite how D&D style alignment is usually described.

Some people do feel like it’s better to codify rules, that laws do (or should) make for a more stable and certain world. Other people do feel like it’s better to trust individuals, and that laws are (or should be) unnecessary, or make things worse. There is something to the idea of a divide between, if not exactly “law and chaos” then “government and anarchy” (and I mean anarchist anarchy there, not government breakdown) or “codification and individualism” or something along those lines. Rules: good or bad?

A person who thinks rules are good might give laws more weight, or wish for laws to cover all moral issues. They might be more likely to make rules in general and be more reluctant to break them. Or they might find twisty ways to get what they want without technically breaking them. Someone who thinks rules are bad probably won’t make many of their own, and won’t give as much weight to existing ones when deciding what to do. And so on and so forth. There’s an impact on behavior, even if it isn’t as simple or straight forward as Lawful vs Chaotic.

And, much as we like to say that people don’t go around thinking they’re evil…well… it’s hard to deny that people do have pretty strong opinions about whether people in general are good or evil, and that most definitely has an impact on how they behave. Or whether people in general are more selfish or more altruistic. Or other similar labels.

And, again, someone who believes that people are generally all out for themselves is probably going to behave a bit differently than someone who thinks that people generally look out for one another.

(Obviously, these are not the only divides to be found. There’s the age old question of whether it’s possible to win without someone else losing, for instance. Or whether it’s better to give a man a fish or teach them to fish. And so on and so forth.)

I do wonder how much it would change how D&D alignment worked if it were explicitly about how your character views the world. Lawful would probably change the least – it’s still about characters believing in the law, or the platonic ideal of laws. Which means they’d be slower to break them, spend more time trying to figure out if an apparently bad law was good in some way that they were missing, etc. But it would avoid the odd idea that sometimes comes up that a Lawful Good character would still feel compelled to be Lawful in a clearly evil land with evil laws. Or that they’d be compelled to turn a party member over to the authorities no matter how much that would mess up saving the world, or whatever.

A Chaotic character on the other hand would be more of an actual anarchist, or someone who came from a place where laws were used mostly (or only) for ill. Or someone who’d been on the end of a lot of unjust laws. Or the like. (Okay, I guess the Law/Chaos angle really doesn’t change a whole lot if you flip it to a description of how the character views the world.)

But the Good and Evil axis changes drastically. It…basically becomes an idealism/cynicism axis instead. Or maybe an idealism/misanthropy axis, with Neutral covering cynicism. And yet, in many ways, it still has the general intended flavoring, with Evil (or whatever we want to call it) characters still being the edgier sorts with darker solutions – potentially, anyway – but it makes mixed alignment parties not only possible, but interesting. And you have room for interesting things like characters who think most people are terrible and out for themselves, but will move heaven and earth for the few people who aren’t and go out of their way not to be a dick because they still think that being a tiny light in a dark world matters. (And you could have Good (or whatever we want to call it) characters who ignore problems because they’re so sure someone else will fix them.)

Of course, this junks the Detect [Alignment] spells, and those that harm people of specific alignments, but those are hopelessly tangled up in what’s wrong with alignment. There are a lot of more interesting things you could replace them with, anyway.

See, alignment as morality always runs face first into a basic human problem: People are quite capable of doing terrible things for what they believe are good motives. (People are also quite capable of doing terrible things for terrible motives, good things for good motives, and even good things for bad motives.) But really, truly, genuinely believing you are doing the right thing doesn’t make it actually the right thing. And fictional morality (not unlike real morality) goes sideways fast when you get intentions and results all mixed up.

Which is also where I always get all frustrated with the Force. Because it’s almost always portrayed as inherently having intentions and results swapped out. It’s not what you do with the Force, it’s how you’re feeling when you’re doing it. From the standpoint of “it’s a super powerful magical thingy and you don’t want your super powerful magic users being all selfish and impulsive and greedy and whatnot because that leads to bad things,” okay, I see where we’re coming from. But from the standpoint of “as long as you’re feeling calm and peaceful while you yeet your enemies to their deaths, it’s cool,” I have…issues.

I also have issues with morality being baked into the fabric of a world (coincidentally…or not so coincidentally…another reason I’ve never been much on the concept of Detect [Alignment] spells). Just whose morality is baked into this world, anyway? Because morality is very definitely a people thing. You can’t contemplate right and wrong without something with which to contemplate!

If the Light Side was purely about life, with all things that preserve life being Light Side, and the Dark Side purely about death, with all things that end life being Dark Side, I could see how you get there without a mind. Buuut that’s not how it works. And if the Force has a mind (or minds!), I have questions. Lots of questions. Also concerns.

And, the more I think about it, the more I just don’t like fiction pretending there’s a clear, definite, inherent good or evil stamp on things. Particularly things that are a whole hell of a lot more complicated than that. Particularly when the stamp seems to come down to something beside the thing itself, whether that’s who is doing the thing, or what emotion the person doing the thing has, or…anything else that’s not the thing.

The Force coming in good and bad flavor (or, for that matter, any other cosmic good/bad thing) makes it so hard to have a coherent, honest debate about a character’s actions. You have to keep going “setting aside that the Imperial March played during that scene…” or “setting aside that you get Light Side points for doing it….” It’s like character centered morality, but not quite. (Jedi centered morality?)

Not, of course, that Star Wars is the only fictional universe guilty of this problem. There’s D&D of course, and assorted other fantasy works. And they always end up feeling like they’re saying something very different from what they meant to say. (If they meant to say anything at all.)

And I think about this all way too much for someone who writes adventure fiction and generally doesn’t spend much time on moral quandaries. Except, of course, when I do.

[lightrises]

"Only in allowing her to pass..." — Hornet, The Radiance, and the means by which Hallownest turned its victims against each other

A quick note: I read Hollow Knight as an anti-colonialist text. As such I'll be touching on topics related to colonialism as it's depicted in the world of the game, and said analysis will reflect both a sympathetic take on The Radiance and a critique of The Pale King that won't pull its punches. If this sounds up your alley, hello and thank you for the read! Let us be sad about these bugs together.

———

So!! A while back I realized something about pre-canon that felt rather... "curious" is one way to put it, I think. To wit: for all the effort and scheming and determination The Pale King poured into trying to get rid of The Radiance, neither of his plans involved directly killing her.

Was that his long game? Well, sure, that seems clear enough. His tack changed from luring the moths away from their god and creator to a more literal form of incarceration once the infection became a factor, but at its core the end goal never really changed—The Pale King very sincerely wished to destroy Radiance via obsolescence. The Seer lends us foreshadowing to confirm as much:

[Image descriptions: Two screenshots from Hollow Knight, showing the Seer and Ghost in the Seer's alcove at the Resting Grounds. Across both screenshots, the Seer tells Ghost the following: "None of us can live forever, and so we ask those who survive to remember us. Hold something in your mind and it lives on with you, but forget it and you seal it away forever. That is the only death that matters." End description.]

(Which, by the way and given the context, talk about an extremely unsubtle allusion to cultural genocide huh!!! Whew.)

In any case, we're left with a whole bunch of machinations which build up to... well, two very roundabout attempts at committing deicide. That's kind of weird, all things considered! Why not just do the deed in one fell swoop and get it over with?

This could be for any number of reasons. Maybe the king was devoid of the means to instantly kill another higher being. Maybe his personal sense of scruples stopped him short of signing off on MURDER murder (although, y'know, the aforementioned genocide + eternal imprisonment = still cool and copasectic apparently!). Maybe the long drawn-out cruelty was the point. Maybe the idea of playing fuckign 4D chess with the circumstances was too delicious for him to pass up—that man did love to tinker and stick his claws where they sure as hell didn't belong—or maybe it was a little bit of All The Things. Who knows!!

But interrogating The Pale King's methodology on this count isn't what I'm here for, at least not really. The main reason I raise this question at all is that in her own way, Hornet did too.

"I'd urge you to take that harder path... "

See, going by The Pale King's actions and what The White Lady explicitly says, they both foresaw two outcomes wrt the infection: it can be allowed to spread, or it can be contained. At Teacher's Archives, Quirrel acknowledges the fact that Ghost is expected to do... something about this, but he doesn't elaborate on what HE thinks that's supposed to be apart from the obvious "Gotta bust into Black Egg Temple first". Hornet is the one person who presents to us—to Ghost—what's framed as a third option: confront and destroy the infection at its source.

And she doesn't bring it up like it's just another tactic for Ghost to consider, prim and indifferent to what they would do. She nudges them towards it, actively, up to the point where she throws herself into the fray against Hollow at a juncture that's uniquely dangerous to her and her alone just to make that option feasible.

Even when she's couching it in disclaimers that this is still Ghost's decision to make (and let's be fair, she's extremely not wrong about that lol), no one can pretend Hornet is unbiased. It's obvious in that buttoned-down Hornet kind of way that she is way the hell done with the increasingly tenuous stalemate that's kept Hallownest's desiccated corpse from collapsing in on itself. Personally it's hard for me not to read some Toriel Undertale-esque "My father was too entrenched in his own foolishness to pursue any course of action that would have DEFINITIVELY ended this" shade into her stance here, regardless of whether that's strictly true in canon.

And that bit—Hornet's hopes for an end to Hallownest's stasis, moreover her grim calculation of what needs to be done to get there—that's the bit I find super interesting but likewise tragic and depressing as shit, on multiple levels. In no small part because a) canon itself gestures towards Hornet feeling conflicted about the very plan she's pushing, and moreover b) she has at least two (2) damn good reasons to feel that way.

So, what do I mean by that? Let's look here first:

[Image description: A screenshot from Hollow Knight, of Hornet and Ghost inside the Temple of the Black Egg, standing in front of the unsealed egg itself. Hornet has been struck by the Dream Nail and her dialogue is displayed as follows: "... Could it achieve that impossible thing? Should it?" End description.]

As the curtain is about to drop on things one way or another, Hornet thinks,

... Could it achieve that impossible thing? Should it?

Now, looking at that last bit it's easy to go "Oh no, Hornet's worried that Ghost won't survive killing The Radiance!" And I do think that's part of it: Hornet is, categorically, not her father. By endgame it's clear she's not content to view her Void-borne siblings as tools to be used then disposed of. She's also well aware that as a healthy autonomous Vessel amongst the countless dead, Ghost is the only person left alive who has a fighting chance against The Radiance. Knowing someone is the only qualified candidate for the job doesn't make encouraging them to embrace a probable death sentence any less of a bitter pill to swallow, though. And odds are on that this sentiment extends to Hollow too, who IS going to die no matter what happens here. To put it bluntly, it's more than reasonable to conclude that Hornet hates the absolute fuck out of this.

But I don't think that's all there is to it either. Remember what I said earlier about The Pale King's bids for genocide? Well, it's not like the man deigned to limit his efforts to just the moth tribe.

"We do not choose our mothers... "

On top of everything else—an infected Hallownest being all she's ever known, the fact that she only exists because of the infection, the list goes on—Hornet has spent her life wedged into a position that's been uncomfortable and terminally unglamorous at best: she is both a daughter of her father's kingdom and of Deepnest.

Deepnest, which like the moths and many others was here long before the wyrm and his lady wife swanned onto the scene and the God Become Bug laid claim to everything the Light touched plus a considerable amount of change. THAT Deepnest, which has fought claw and thread to retain its sovereignty against same-said settler king, and for which Herrah not only surrendered her life but also agreed to bed her worst enemy, all in hopes of securing a viable future for her people (put a pin in that last part by the way, I'll come back to it soon).

Two Worlds, One Family (Ft. An Indigenous Woman Trying Her Damndest To Work With What She's Got Versus An Imperialist Who Only Signed Up For This Because He Needed The Political Favor THAT Badly, So It's The Height Of Dysfunctional Actually). Fun times!!!!

The baggage this entails for Hornet is gnarly enough without implications made by The White Lady and the pre-canon timeline of events and even Team Cherry's dev notes that the king may well have looked at baby Hornet, gone "YOINK", then ensured she spent the lion's share of her childhood reared within the pearly auspices of his Pale Court*. That would be rather advantageous for Him Specifically after all, the potential to mold a born foe into a future ally and even have her trained in combat under the same tutelage as her doomed sibling. And far be it from him to stop a grown Hornet—his own flesh and blood too!—from making Deepnest her forever home if she so pleased. He totally wouldn't be reneging on his "fair bargain made" by doing this one simple thing until Hornet came of age, not t e c h nic c a l l y.

If that is indeed the case, there's a non-zero chance Hornet's formative years were a hot mess of cultural alienation and being a good deal more privy than most to just how much of a bastard her father could be. There's an equally non-zero chance that at some point she stood or sat within earshot as The Pale King finally, finally dropped all pretense and euphemism to name the Light for precisely what (for who) it was.

See, in conjunction with the question that started this whole dang train of thought I've been asking this one too: Does Hornet know? When she speaks of confronting "the heart of [the] infection" does she know she's talking about not just a literal person but someone very specific? The Radiance, who god though she may be shares skin in the game alongside Hornet as a native woman screwed over by the same settler king, likewise deprived of her kin and saddled with a life gone horrendously pear-shaped?

I'll assume for the sake of exploring the possibility and because I think it's a likely one anyway that yes, Hornet does know. She knows, and despite everything can't help empathizing. She might even look at Radiance and see bits and pieces both reflected and slightly inversed in her own mother: Radiance was forced to the sidelines while her people—her children, the brood she was meant to lead and care for—died out under The Pale King's rule, and it's no stretch to assume she's at least as upset about that as she has been about everything else; Herrah too took drastic measures for her people's sake, trying to head off annihilation by relegating herself to the sidelines in an act that was as much calculated risk as an attempt to find wiggle room and leverage in the face of a nasty proposition.

A calculated risk that, if things continue as they are, might well amount to nothing as the rest of Deepnest gets eaten alive by the infection. It survived The Pale King's advances for so so long, only to fall here. Herrah's sacrifice would be for naught; the other tribes—themselves the king's victims—would keep succumbing to the infection too.

And this is where things fall apart.

"... or the circumstance into which we are born."

Let's be clear: I think Hornet is wise enough to know what's what here, that all the carnage and suffering falls on her father's head for starting this slow-motion trainwreck in the first place. Hallownest wasn't always Hallownest. This domain was Radiance's home first, along with many others. It was the worm-turned-king who rolled up on the scene unsolicited and decided this was a ""'problem""" that had to be """solved""".

But the fact of the matter is that he's gone and The Radiance is here, raging, seemingly inconsolable. Above and beyond being Deepnest's rightful heir, Hornet isn't in a position to countenance more splash damage even if the grief and fury fueling it makes perfect sense. She can understand without ever bringing herself to love Radiance, and she can bend her knee to practicality even if she hates the everloving shit out of it because the fact that it "has" to end this way isn't fair.

This lends itself to one last awful conclusion: that Hornet has probably considered and (rightly or wrongly) discarded the possibility that Radiance can be saved, at least not without dragging more collateral along for the ride. If even her mother and every other enemy to the king seemed to dismiss talking Radiance down as an option way back when... well. Why should Hornet hope for any better after things have escalated so far?

Again, it's practical. A practical net good is what Hornet strives for. And again, it fucking sucks.

For extra tragedy points, this makes Hornet's extended crypticness around Ghost followed by her last minute casting about for a reason to tell them "Wait, don't; not just yet" that she never voices even more of a gut punch. She can't bring herself to burden Ghost with the context that haunts her so, least of all when it might weaken their resolve to go through with what (she thinks) needs doing.

It's the "same song, different verse" which led to the mantis tribe and Deepnest being pitted against each other: Hallownest rigged the game so that two women who could have been powerful allies—who have a mutual vested interest in driving out settler rule—wound up poised as enemies instead. And how awful is that? The king for all his being extremely fucking dead still gets the last laugh, because outside of a miracle the game never manifests Hornet can salvage what her mother started and look forward to a future where Deepnest pulls itself back from the brink if and only if The Radiance dies.

Resolution comes at the price of a completed genocide. Add two more dead siblings to the unconscionable pile thereof, while we're at it. That's what it boils down to whether or not Hornet can bear to articulate it as such, and there's no grace or even a properly bittersweet ending to wring from this clusterfuck. And that is rough.

———

* This has been better explained elsewhere, but a quick rundown: The White Lady tells Ghost that Hornet and Herrah "were permitted little time together." On its surface this can be taken to mean that Hornet was still very young when Herrah was shipped off to Eternal Dreamland—except this doesn't jive with the fact that we meet Hornet as an adult. If the stasis kicked in once the Dreamers went to their rest, which in turn halted the aging process for every living bug in Hallownest, AND before all this Hornet experienced little by the way of quality time with her birth mother... I think you can see where I'm going with this.

To top it off we've got Team Cherry weighing in ominously from their dev notes on Herrah: "As part of the agreement for her alliance and her role as a dreamer, King gave her a child (Hornet). Was she allowed to keep this child or was she taken away?" This isn't confirmation by itself of course, but given additional canon details (see above): Can I get a "yikes" in the chat fellas.

[antipodeanpineapplelump]

WIP... Tuesday?

Just in case anyone was wondering what useless novelty project I’m spending my time on now, may I introduce:

Or more accurately: “Shisui Uchiha and the Saga of the Overly Complex Movie Poster that’s Taking Up all of the Author’s Writing Time.”

Or: “Shisui Uchiha and the One-off Story that Accidentally Turned Into a Trilogy, much to the Author’s Total Lack of Surprise.”

So anyway, I have 30,000 words (3/9 chapters of the first part) so far and as usual, no timeline for completing this story. But I’m definitely in too deep to back out now! My new approach to stories is to write the whole thing, then post week by week. So this one is still probably several months away at least...

But here’s a quick preview:

The list of things Shisui Uchiha regrets in his life is pretty small.

A handful of ill-considered one night stands, several embarrassing bets with members of his family, the summer he decided to turn emo, oh—and one particularly notable fuck-up early in his career that very nearly ended it prematurely. But, for the most part, it’s been smooth-sailing.

Sure, maybe the odd rival takes a pot shot at him here or there. Ancient booby traps try to kill him, or the local wildlife steps in where they’ve left off. He and spiders are categorically never going to get along. But he’s never had cause to regret his career itself. He loves everything about treasure hunting—the adventure, the danger, the intellectual challenge of it all. The way his heart races when he finds some ancient artifact supposedly lost for good.

So, all in all, his current position—perched twenty feet up a silk cotton tree in India, surrounded by about two-dozen armed thugs personally out for his blood—well, that’s just another day at the office.

Two of the men walk below Shisui’s hiding place and he holds his breath, watching. They’re thick-built meat-heads; improbable amalgams of every jackbooted thug to ever grace a movie screen, with jawlines Chuck Norris could break a fist on, and brows that would make a Neanderthal proud. Supressing the snicker that threatens to escape him at the thought, Shisui wonders where Gato keeps finding these idiots. Some sort of steroid-fuelled body building conference maybe…

Comfortable they’re far too stupid to realise he’s here, he swings his legs back and forward, checking his bag to make sure his prize is still undamaged. Thankfully, despite having beaten a hasty retreat through the crowded city streets, the jewel-encrusted golden elephant winks up at him like a winning lottery ticket. One that’s going to pay for fancy canapes, champagne and extra leg room on Shisui’s flight home. Then a lot more afterwards.

But karma, as they say, is a bitch.

And karma, for Shisui, makes itself known in the form of a fluffy grey creature that plops down onto the branch beside him, joined in short order by half a dozen other partners in crime. At first, the macaque just fixes its intelligent gaze on Shisui, as though assessing what to do with him. Then, one very pregnant pause later, after the apparent realisation that no food is immediately forthcoming, the ringleader opens its mouth and screams. Loudly.

Shit.

“No, shhh…” Shisui orders in a loud whisper. “Oh come on, don’t be an asshole.”

The screaming continues, soon swelling to a cacophony as the others join in.

“Shoo!” he pleads, waving his arms around to try and scare them off. “I’ll buy you bag of bananas or something when I get down from here, just please shut up…”

But the little bastards don’t stop and, if anything, Shisui’s heated objection only seems to be pissing them off more. Which is fantastic, because truly the last thing he needs today is to catch rabies or—

From the bottom of the tree, someone clears their throat. “Ahem.”

Or that.

It’s smug, officious, and quite frankly, about the last voice Shisui wants to hear right now. Every part of him sinks. On reflection, maybe it was a bit arrogant to think he wouldn’t have been followed to the temple. To think he was just going to walk in, pilfer a several-centuries old treasure, and walk out again, a comfortable five-figure sum the richer for it.

But then, it wouldn’t be the first time.

Sighing, he looks down to see his least-favourite human approximation of a turd. “Gato.”

“Well, well, if it isn’t my favourite globe-trotting Uchiha. Fancy seeing you here,” Gato says, appearing inordinately pleased. His trademark sunglasses sit awkwardly atop his bulbous nose, straddling a pencil moustache that looks like a worm met its unfortunate end on his face some years ago, and he never bothered to wipe it off.

For reasons he can’t currently articulate, it annoys the shit out of Shisui. Possibly because if there’s anything he hates more than someone getting the better of him, it’s someone who’s as much of a fucking waste of space as Gato getting the better of him.

“Yeah well, you know how it is,” he says, glancing around for a quick exit. “Ancient treasures to find, damsels in distress to rescue…”

But unfortunately, the crowd of highly armed men around Gato is growing by the second, and Shisui’s options are looking somewhat thin on the ground. At least, all the ones that don't end with him riddled in bullet holes. Damn macaques…

Gato grins. In the pre-monsoon heat, sweat rolls down his neck and spreads like an oily stain across his collar. “Oh, I’m well aware of how you operate... You’re a businessman, just like me. Always taking jobs for the highest bidder.” Before Shisui can open his mouth to disagree, Gato holds up a hand, adding, “I know, I know… you don’t see yourself that way. Moral code or whatever it is you like to call it. But in reality, the only difference between us is that you have the air of legitimacy that comes with an academic backing, whereas I’m willing to admit what I really want.”

“And what do you want, Gato?” Shisui asks flatly, already knowing the answer. The tired old game they’re playing here.

“That trinket you have in your bag.” Gato licks his lips, as though he can taste the champagne he’s going to be drinking once he returns the statue to whoever hired him, to disappear into some private collection, never to see the light of day again.

“What do I get in return?” Shisui asks, even though it’s obvious from Gato’s expression that he’s not going to like it, whatever it is.

A mirthless laugh assaults his ears. “I’ll let you live to cross paths with me another day.”

As offers go, it’s not very believable. But as much as Shisui hates to admit when his luck’s run out, even he can see the writing on the wall. Today really isn’t his day. Sure, he might trust Gato about as far as he could throw him, but even Gato isn’t stupid enough to shoot him on a main street, in broad daylight. Probably…

Retrieving the golden elephant from his bag, Shisui tosses it carefully down.

Turning the trinket over in his hands, Gato lets out a hum of appreciation. “Very nice. My client will be pleased.” He hands it off to one of his many thugs to box up, then peers back through the branches, looking more like a slug than Shisui would ever have thought possible. Reinforcing the impression, his lips twist with a slimy smile. “Well, as always, it’s been nice doing business with you Shisui. But I think, unfortunately, you’ve caused me trouble for the last time.”

Far too pleased for Shisui’s taste, Gato steps back, raising his hand in a gesture that looks awfully like it’s intended as a final farewell. Or a smug ‘fuck you.’ Either way, the message is perfectly clear.

Shisui rolls his eyes, mentally scratching off another predictable villainous turn on his treasure hunting bingo card. “All right,” he calls after Gato’s retreating back. “Nice doing business with you too! See you next time...” Under his breath he mutters, “Asshole…”

Truly, Gato doesn't have an original bone in his body. It's like he once read The Idiots Guide to Being a B-Grade Movie Villain, then internalised it on the spot to make up for a lack of anything remotely resembling a personality. But, pathetic imitation of a villain or not, his bullets are still effective.

The leaves around him shred beneath the pop, pop of gunfire as Shisui sucks in a rushed breath, bracing himself for what he’s about to do. The branch wobbles precariously beneath his feet as he races along it, pushing off into air that rushes past, disconcerting and empty. The slender gap to the building seems to widen to the span of a gaping abyss—

He hits the rail of the apartment with thud, clambering quickly over it to fall on his back on the balcony, winded, but mercifully unharmed. A macaque peers over the guttering at him, with a leering grin that clearly threatens more screaming.

“Don’t you start,” he warns, waggling a finger at it.

But there’s barely a moment to catch his breath before the sound of splintering wood below indicates another problem. Or an extension of the same one. Bounding to his feet, Shisui scoops up his hat, settles it back on his head, and checks over the railing. A bullet clips the plaster nearby—a pretty good indication that Gato’s men have every idea where he’s gone. That, combined with the way they’re currently pushing through the lower doors to the complex probably doesn’t mean anything good for him.

“Shit,” he announces to no one in particular. It’s times like these he really wishes he carried a gun…

Forcing his way into the mercifully empty apartment off the balcony, Shisui slips quickly through it. Cracking open the door on the far side, he checks the coast is clear. It is.

Of course, it doesn’t stay that way for long. Halfway along the open air corridor, there’s a cry of discovery from his pursuers, followed by more shooting. Seriously, why are the bad guys always bringing guns to Shisui’s knife fights?

Ducking, he runs faster, bursting into another apartment filled with hazy cigarette smoke and shocked faces before finally making it to an exterior stairwell on the far side. Looking at the next building over, it’s immediately apparent the gap is way too far for him to use the same trick he did before. But with Gato’s men advancing on him from below, maybe he can just make it to street level and bypass them altogether…

A thicket of power cables criss-crosses the span between the buildings, with one nearby running almost to the level of the shop awnings below. Sending a rash of silent prayers to whatever gods take care of Indian power line maintenance, Shisui detaches a length of rope from his belt and flings it over the wire, gripping each side like a makeshift zipline. Holding his breath, he pushes off into empty space. To his surprise and considerable delight, the line holds.

It sweeps him across the street, picking up more and more speed, until the side of the other building is rushing at him like—

Shit.

He impacts it with his shoulder, coming to an uncomfortable and jarring stop. Pain shoots down his arm and he lets go of the rope, crashing through a fabric awning and landing ungracefully in a huge stack of bagged flour. Dust floats down around him and Shisui groans, moving each of his limbs in turn. By some miracle, nothing seems broken. Not even his tantō in its leather holster at his back.

Oh well. Fall down seven times, stand up eight…

Apparently his exit was none too subtle though, because Gato’s men are leaning over the stairwell railing, yelling and pointing at the mess he’s made. Dragging himself to his feet, Shisui evades an angry store owner, brushes flour off of his clothes and resumes running for his life.

Never let anyone say archaeology is boring.

As he emerges back onto the main street, searching for quick and easy exit, the sound of screeching brakes and angry honking carries from the road. Cutting a wild path through traffic is an old open-top olive-drab Jeep with several gold charms dangling from its rear-view mirror. It jerks to a stop just before hitting Shisui, both side wheels riding up on the curb.

“Need a ride?” the female driver asks, grinning.

Her windswept hair hangs past the fashionable silk scarf tied at her neck. Unmanicured nails wrap around the slender metal of the steering wheel, like they couldn’t be more at home there. They’re a stark contrast with the cream suit linen she’s wearing, rolled up neatly to her elbows. Speckled with dirt, it looks like she’s probably travelled halfway across the country to be here, and been up to her elbows in the grease of the Jeep’s engine at some point to do it. She’s a walking contradiction—albeit one Shisui is delighted to see.

“Izumi!” he exclaims happily.

Eyes sparkling, she waves. “Hey.”

“I thought you were practicing on the course in Reno this weekend… What’re you doing here?”

A shot rings out, kicking up dust near one of the tyres. Glancing behind him, Izumi rolls her eyes, reaching across to throw open the door. “What am I always doing? Saving your ass, you idiot... Now get in before one of us gets shot, or I have to find out whether my rental insurance covers illegal firefight damage.”

[iam93percentstardust]

And the last one from me, I promise: I'm really craving some WinterIron 'identity porn' where Iron Man is a villain (not really, but the media and SHIELD say so) and Bucky feels really bad for liking this guy who's his enemy. Plus this Tony Stark fella is kind of cute too... Thank you for your writing! ♡

Thank you! I hope you like this as it also fills one of my squares for @starkbucksbingo

Title: Secret Side in Plain Sight Collaborator Name: iam93percentstardust Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24806083/ Square Filled: B1 - First Date Ship/Main Pairing: Winteriron Rating: T Major Tags & Triggers: Identity Porn, Villain Iron Man, First Dates Word Count: 1811 Summary: In an attempt to get over his crush on Iron Man, the Avengers' nemesis, Bucky asks out the cute baker who lives down the street. For his part, Tony would be delighted that Bucky's finally asked him out - if only someone hadn't stolen his suit.

Just because Bucky knew that asking Iron Man out was a bad idea didn’t mean that he was willing to admit it. 

Look, Sam had good points sometimes but Bucky categorically refused to admit it. They had had this animosity since they met two years ago and that wasn’t going to change anytime soon. So yeah, Bucky knew that he couldn’t just ask Iron Man out but because it was Sam who pointed it out as a bad idea, he couldn’t just admit it. 

Besides, it wasn’t like Iron Man was really a villain, no matter what SHIELD and the media tried to paint him as. No one who was actually a villain stopped their “evil and nefarious plans,” as Iron Man put it, to save a little girl from a burning building. And yeah, okay, maybe it was Iron Man’s fault that the building was on fire in the first place but Bucky had been there when the building had caught flames. He’d heard the shock in Iron Man’s voice as he realized the fire department hadn’t been able to put out the fire in the warehouse next door and it had spread to the surrounding buildings, the horror when Sam had said he wouldn’t be able to get to the girl in time.

No villain—a true villain anyway—reacted like that. They would have left the girl to die.

But Bucky still knew it was a bad idea to ask him out, even if he was flirty and didn’t mind his metal arm. He could picture that cocky smile in his mind’s eye, imagine those pretty, dark curls, those whiskey brown eyes…Okay, so maybe he was imagining his other crush as the mysterious Iron Man but really who could blame him? They were both wicked smart and snarky and maybe just the tiniest bit arrogant but both Tony and Iron Man had good reason to be arrogant. Tony was the best baker on the East Coast and Iron Man had yet to be stopped by anyone. He didn’t think they could be blamed for being cocky about it.

Point was, he knew that he couldn’t just ask out Iron Man but he could do something about his crush on Tony (and no, he was not pining, no matter what Sam and Steve said). So he was there, standing in front of Sweet Treats at the end of the day, waiting for the evening rush to clear out so he could go inside and ask Tony out and hopefully not make a fool of himself in the process—though if he did, well, that was why he waited until just before closing.

“Bucky Bear!” Tony said delightedly as soon as he entered. “Come here, I’ve got this great new flavor of cupcake that I want you to try. The bakery-that-shall-not-be-named down the street tried something similar a few weeks ago and everyone’s been going to them for cupcakes now which is obviously ridiculous but it means I have to step up my game which, not like it’s hard—hello, have you met me? Anyway, it’s—”

“Baby doll, you’re babbling,” Bucky said with an amused smile. Christ, he liked this man.

“Oh yeah. Anyway, here.” Tony shoved half a cupcake into Bucky’s mouth before he could say anything else or even take it from him. Bucky almost choked on it before he remembered how to chew and swallow.

“Amazing, Tony, as always,” he said truthfully, licking the last little bit of crumbs from his lips. “Kind of spicy. What’s in them?”

Tony seemed frozen, staring at his mouth with a dazed expression on his face. “What?”

Bucky chuckled. That’s promising, at least. “The cupcakes. What’s in them?”

“Oh! Mangoes and jalapeños. I’m thinking about trying out a lime buttercream frosting on them, something like a margarita, you know?”

“And what’s Cake—”

“Ahem!” Tony said loudly, glaring at him.

“Sorry. What’s the bakery-that-shall-not-be-named doing?”

“Just jalapeño. They’ve got some sort of cinnamon frosting and spicy candy on top but I think mine is better.”

“It is,” Bucky assured him.

“You haven’t even tried theirs!” But Tony looked positively ecstatic to hear about Bucky’s loyalty so he knew he was doing something right at least.

“Don’t have to. Yours is always better.” He cleared his throat, scuffing his foot on the clean floor. “So, listen, I was thinking—”

“Could you flip the sign on the door for me?”

“What? Oh, sure.” He headed over to the door, flipped the open sign to closed. He probably could have asked then but he thought that asking Tony out should be a face-to-face conversation. “Tony, we’ve been—”

A timer went off in the small kitchen in the back. “Oh fuck,” Tony whispered. “The macarons.” He darted for the back, Bucky trailing after him, probably looking like a lost duckling. He was allowed in the back. Tony had given him permission after the sixth time he’d shown up at closing time, just to talk to the cute baker, and hadn’t wanted to end the conversation so Tony could rescue a batch of cupcakes from the oven. For as talented as Tony was, he had to throw out half the things he baked because he got distracted easily and forgot to take care of them before they were ruined.

Fortunately, the macarons were not one of the ruined batches—this time—and as Tony was setting them into individual containers to sit overnight, Bucky started to ask again, “Hey, I was wondering if you wanted—”

“Can you hand me that—"

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Bucky hissed. “Will you go out with me or not?”

Tony blinked up at him. “Try that again?”

“You, me, dinner? Maybe not tonight but tomorrow?”

Tony blinked again, slow enough that Bucky wondered if he was maybe about to get turned down, but then a delighted smile spread across Tony’s face. “I’d love to,” he breathed.

“Yeah?” Bucky asked, double checking. He almost wanted to tell Tony that he’d already said yes, there were no take backs, but they were decidedly not children, no matter how they acted sometimes.

He nodded eagerly. “Yeah. Tomorrow, you said? Do you have a place in mind? Cause if you don’t, I know this great little Italian restaurant. It’s near my place and if you want, afterwards—”

“Whoa, doll,” Bucky said, laughing as he laid a finger on Tony’s lips. “Wanna take my time with you. Wanna do this right.”

The look in Tony’s eyes could best be described as pouting but he kissed the tip of Bucky’s finger, giggling when Bucky groaned. “I can do slow,” he promised. “So. What did you have in mind?”

“You like burgers?”

~

He had no idea how he managed to pick out Tony’s favorite food. They had talked before, about Tony’s Italian mother and how that instilled a love of pasta in him, about Bucky growing up in the Depression and how he thought he hated chicken but really he just hated under-seasoned, overcooked meat. He counted himself lucky that Fury hadn’t seen a point in hiding the fact that Bucky Barnes was back after spending most of the last century as the world’s greatest assassin because it meant that he could share things like his past with Tony without being worried that he would inadvertently reveal something he wasn’t supposed to. And, in return, Tony told him about growing up wealthy, as one of the Starks, and about how he’d walked away from his parents’ company after they died, leaving it to become Stane Industries.

“You must really hate Iron Man, then,” Bucky had commented idly, not really fishing for information on his other crush but still curious. Iron Man almost exclusively went after Stane technology and warehouses.

To his surprise, Tony had given him a guarded look. “Why would you say that?” he’d asked warily.

“Cause that was your parents’ company he’s attacking even if it’s not anymore.”

“Maybe I think it’s good. Maybe I think I left SI because I didn’t want to make weapons anymore but I couldn’t talk the board into changing the direction of the company,” Tony had muttered, apparently forgetting that Bucky could hear everything he was saying. Well, it wasn’t like Tony could be Iron Man so it didn’t matter whether or not he liked what Stane was doing to the company. Whatever Tony’s thoughts were on Iron Man, it wasn’t important and had no effect on their date and Bucky really needed to stop thinking about Iron Man anyway. He had a date with someone cute and Iron Man was unattainable and just barely on the right side of being a villain anyway.

~

It was a little hard not thinking about Iron Man when he seemed determined to make sure that he was on Bucky’s mind at all times.

He and Tony had barely sat down at their table when his Avengers Card beeped, telling him about an upcoming mission. He groaned and fished out the card, scanning the details of the mission. Iron Man, of course. The villain had been particularly active over the last couple weeks but this one was new; Iron Man wasn’t attacking one of SI’s warehouses this time. He was attacking a children’s hospital.

“What the fuck?” Bucky muttered.

“Your other job?” Tony asked, smirking.

Bucky glared at him but there was no heat behind it. “It’s not like I’m a secret agent, baby doll. Ain’t no need to call it my other job. I’m the Winter Soldier and I’m an Avenger and we both know it.”

“But it’s just so fun,” he teased. “But, really, did something come up?”

“Yeah,” Bucky muttered. “Fucking Iron Man, ruining the first date I’ve had since the 40s.”

Tony frowned. “I’m sorry, did you say Iron Man?”

“Yeah. Look, I’m sorry, doll. Gotta go take care of this. Can we try again tomorrow? I was really looking forward to our date.” He leaned forward before he could think better of it and brushed his lips over Tony’s cheek.

Tony had a distracted look in his eyes but he blushed anyway. “Tomorrow sounds great. Good luck out there.”

Bucky was halfway to the door when Tony called after him, “And Bucky Bear? Be careful!”

Bucky grinned and saluted him. Tony cared about him. Tony didn’t want him to be hurt. He hardly even cared that Iron Man was acting outside of his usual modus operandi because Tony cared about him. They were gonna have another date tomorrow and everything was gonna be fine.

~

Tony waited until Bucky was gone before fishing his phone out of his pocket. He dialed Rhodey, impatiently drumming his fingers on the arc reactor under his shirt as he waited for him to pick up.

“Tones?” Rhodey said sleepily. “This better be important, do you have any—”

“Rhodey, who the fuck stole my suit?”

[path-of-my-childhood]

Collect Call From... TAYLOR SWIFT

Blender Magazine (final, unpublished issue from May 2009) // By Josh Eells

Each month, one lucky rock star phones Blender HQ for seven days straight, just to, you know, share. Now on the line: country-pop princess.

DAY 1: FEBRUARY 24th, 3:51 pm

Swift calls from Nashville, where she lives with her parents and younger brother. “I’m so happy to be home! I’ve been in Europe for two weeks. I got back two nights ago and spent half of yesterday sleeping. This is my only week off for months, but I categorize vacations differently than most people. I don’t care if I’m doing interviews from when I wake up till I go to sleep, as long as l’m in my own bed, that’s a day off.  This morning I went to some of the radio stations in town, said hi to program directors. Then I met with my stylist - we talked about tour outfits. And now I’m getting dressed for my brother Austin’s lacrosse game. He plays goalie - this is his first game as starter. His friends used to tease him about me, but now he's six two and built. I don’t think they make jokes anymore.”

DAY 2: FEBRUARY 25th, 4:14 pm

Swift phones from home, where she’s “lounging on the couch under a quilt” and playing with her dogs, Baby (a Doberman) and Bug (a mini Pinscher). “Austin did great! His team won, and he kept a bunch of balls out of the goal. Afterwards I went with my friend Emily to a Nashville Predators game. I did a commercial for them, so they hook me up with tickets when I’m in town. There’s a couple of cute guys, but I think they’re all married. I totally cheer and do the fang-finger thing. Last night they put me on the JumboTron, and you could literally see the wave of people getting up to come over. I’m still getting used to the fact that being stared at is part of my day - in high school it meant I had something on my face. The fact that my albums has been No. 1 for 10 weeks - it’s unbelievable. But this week looks a little questionable: The Jonas Brothers have an album out, too. Hmm.”

DAY 3: FEBRUARY 26th, 5:30 pm

Swift dials in from the road In Nashville, where she’s stuck In rush-hour traffic. "I just shot a video with my friend Kellie [Pickier] for a song we wrote together. It’s about ex-boyfriends. In the video I am kind of her trouble-making sidekick - I wore this strapless studded dress with a zipper up the front. The whole day I was afraid someone was gonna walk by and unzip me. It would have taken half a second to ruin my day. Oh, my God, last night I fell asleep on the couch watching CSI: NY. I was out at like 7, but at some point I dragged myself to bed, and apparently in my haze I turned the heat up to 95! I woke up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat, with my poor cat lying on the floor panting. I made myself an ice bath and called my friend Emma in LA - she was in Superbad - and she kept me company for two hours while I cooled down.”

DAY 4: FEBRUARY 27th, 4:37 pm

Swift rings from the music room at her house, where she’s teaching herself how to play piano. “I’m still not caught up from my jet lag. Today I woke up at 5:30, ate same cereal and fell back asleep on the couch. I didn’t sleep long though, because we had rehearsal this morning. Kenny Chesney was rehearsing next door, so we chatted for a bit. Nashville is a really small town. I still live with my parents because I’m never home long enough to move out. And I don’t go to bars, because I’m 19 and scared of breaking rules. Besides Kellie and my best friend Abigail, who moved to Kansas, most of my friends are in LA. And boys aren’t even an issue right now. I categorize guys as “talking”, “nominees” - people you feel like you could someday date - and “dating”. Right now I don’t even have nominees. I don’t even have potential future nominees! But I’m used to being single. Before my last relationship [with Joe Jonas] I was single for like two years. It’s sort of my thing.”

DAY 5: FEBRUARY 28th, 12:50 pm

Swift checks in from her mom’s car with some medical news. “So, I’m driving to the doctors office. I burned my face with a curling iron! Don’t worry, I’m fine - I’ll call you after we’re done. [She phones a few hours later.] OK. What happened was, I woke up at 6 am and decided to curl my hair. I guess l was still asleep, because I slipped and burned my face under my right eye. It hurt really bad, but I didn’t think much of it. I edited and uploaded a MySpace video - unhindered by the fact that my face was melting off - and went downstairs, and my dad was like, ‘Oh, my God!’ I guess it was worse than I realized. So we went to the dermatologist. She gave me a prescription for some burn cream - I’m not sure what it is, but it has a lot of syllables. The good news is I’m expected to make a full recovery.”

DAY 6: MARCH 1st, 10:03 pm

Swift phones from Plant City, Florida, where she lust performed at the world famous Florida Strawberry Festival. “This place is strawberry city! When we landed, there were official Strawberry Festival minivans waiting to pick us up, driven by people in strawberry shirts. In the dressing room there were bushels of the most beautiful, gigantic chocolate covered strawberries I’ve ever seen. It’s like they welded three together! And this afternoon I met the Strawberry Festival Queen and her court. They were dressed in red and looked very sparkly. It was cold for Florida, like 55 and rainy, but everybody bundled up and had a great time. Afterward we had a police escort, which always makes you feel cool, and we’re taking a private jet, which is even cooler. On the way to the airport all these kids were trying to hurl themselves on our car - it was pretty frantic for a second. But thankfully no one got hurt. That’s why it was cool.”

DAY 7: MARCH 2nd, 12:50 pm

On her last day at home, Swift calls from her favorite couch, where she’s enjoying the view of Old Hickory Lake. “It’s freezing in Tennessee! It’s like 29 degrees, and I’m sitting here packing sundresses and flip-flops for two weeks in Australia. That and downloading movies for the 20,000-hour flight I’m about to embark on. I have three goals for this trip. One, get a tan. Two, go to the beach. And three, debut my new summer wardrobe. Oh, and four, play some good shows and make an impact on Australia! Ha. I don’t go into most situations thinking I’m going to win. I’ve never even won a raffle. These blessings I’ve had lately are more amazing than I could have ever imagined. We got the new projections today, and It’s looking like we’re going to be No.1 again. Does it feel a little sweeter this week? [Laughs] Yeah - just a little.”

[neurodivergent-media]

idk if this was mentioned but They Look Like People has the main character suffering from schizophrenia and it is a horror movie and no one demonizes him except minor secondary characters.

Okay, I suspect this is going to be long so I’ll put it under a read more. I’m going to turn this into a review as well as an answer if you don’t mind. I want to start with I absolutely adore this movie, but I also want to start with a disclaimer: violence isn’t a symptom of schizophrenia or any psychotic illness, and that’s something to hold on to. That’s about the only gripe I have with this movie, because all schizophrenic characters I have seen display violence. But, I’ll get into that. I also wanted to mention its not categorized as horror, it’s categorized as drama/mystery, which is very, very important when it comes to the directors intent.

There’s a lot in this movie that I feel was represented perfectly. At least to me. I know everyone who suffers from schizophrenia has a different experience, sometimes drastically different, but this resonated with mine.

Wyatt and Christian seem to be the two main characters, with Mara and Amy less so. Wyatt so far as is shown, is suffering from untreated schizophrenia. It has gotten to the point where it has cost him relationships due to his paranoia, and in the beginning he hadn’t even spoken to Christian in a long time. He broke up with his fiancée Hannah because he felt she had become “infected”, something that came to him in his dreams. He doesn’t tell Christian this though. He’s afraid he won’t believe him and tells him she cheated and left him.

I’m going to try hard to relay why we’re already off to a good start. A big part of schizophrenia that people may experience is the social isolation. Whether it be from the depressive (that is, symptoms that mimic depression) symptoms, from paranoia, or from social anhedonia. A lot of us are also terrified to share what we know to be our reality as well. Maybe just because of our paranoia or because of the reactions we’ve already dealt with. Most importantly though, Wyatt is presented as a person. As in, when he enters the film, he isn’t a stereotype, he is Christian’s friend, first and foremost. That is who he is. That is who is introduced as; a friend who Christian hasn’t talked to in a long time. And I absolutely love that. That alone, after learning about Wyatt’s schizophrenia, nearly made me cry

A lot of what makes me a fan of this film is that it doesn’t focus on making Wyatt the villain. In fact, he’s not a villain. The film focuses not only on his mental illness, but on the friendship he and Christian have. My favorite part of this movie is that although Wyatt, towards the end, makes some bad moves, Christian is still there to help him. He trusts him. And it gets Wyatt through the storm.

I read an interview for Perry Blackshear after watching the film. It’s very apparent to me at least that he put a lot of time, effort, and care into creating Wyatt’s character. There’s a lot to him that I, as a fellow schizophrenic, relate to heavily, and I feel is dealt with respectfully.

Wyatt believes that people are being infected (how they are changes a few times; through the voice, the ears, the eyes) and turned into something like demons. A voice consistently calls him at night to tell him to prepare for the upcoming war. Eventually this voice reveals itself as Christian’s love interest, Mara, and when Wyatt confronts her on it, he makes her run for the hills, despite her confession that she hears things too. Even when Wyatt gets to the point where he is yelling at Christian, I feel it’s still handled correctly. Especially parts where he tells people “they can’t hear us down here” or writes it on a piece of paper so They can’t hear. Those parts I have experienced personally, and I’m sure many others have. Feeling like They can always hear you, even your thoughts, and trying desperately to find some way to communicate and ask for help. That really resonated with me, made him into even more of a human being instead of just a straw man for schizophrenia. It was nice to see all these things paid attention to and treated properly, like there’s a human being experiencing them.

What else I really loved was the way they made sure to portray Wyatt having fun, playing games like “blobbies” and getting drunk with his best friend. It really helped a lot, they really did a great job at making him a person first and not a stereotype.

[and-they-were-crewmates]

Room For Three | Deleted Scenes

Hi friends! Have you read my fic Room For Three? If not, and you’re looking for Holden/Amos/Naomi fic, go check that out first, because it’s better than this.

The following are a few deleted scenes from Chapter 20. These scenes did not actually occur in the universe of the fic. They were deleted in part because they weren’t relevant to anything, so they added too much superfluous bulk to an already superfluous and bulky fic, and in part because I wasn’t very confident with my characterization of Camina’s family or the way I communicated their dialect. I do love the idea of giving Drummer some closure with Naomi, though I don’t think that Room For Three is the place to explore that concept. That being said, this was a fun little scene, so I’d like to share!

Very mildly NSFW text below. This is from a rated E fic, but is not explicitly sexual. CW recreational drug use (marijuana)

“I wouldn’t want to impose,” said Naomi into her hand terminal. The small window in the corner reflected her own image, alone in the room while Jim either finished up his therapy or got started on his way to lunch with Fred, and Amos journeyed to pick up food for the two of them. The larger window, the focus of her attention, showed Drummer’s full face and half of another woman’s, whose shoulder acted as a pillow for Camina’s tilted head. Her friend looked more at peace than Naomi had ever seen her. 

“Nah, we insist. Whole crew will be happy to meet The Naomi Nagata. Plus, your Earther boys obviously need a lesson in family. Double date.” 

“Is it still called a double date if there’s nine people at the table?” 

“Nonuple date, then. Come. Josep good cook, Bertold good advice, Oksana good to look at,” she said. The body next to her stuck out an elbow in playful defense, and a loving giggle filled the speaker. “Good in bed, too,” Camina added to appease her, and they both laughed together. 

“Alright, alright. I guess I’d rather get polyam lessons from you lot than from Jim’s eight parents.” 

“Soyá. One Holden is more than enough for me.” Naomi didn’t say it, but she agreed. The Holden family was a lot to handle. She knew there might be a discussion with them in her future, in which she and Amos would undoubtedly have to stand under their mild-mannered scrutiny and well-meant condescension, but she hoped to put it off as long as possible. 

“Be nice to him tonight,” Naomi implored,  Camina rolled her eyes. 

“To ta ge im, bosmang. I will try. No promises ‘bout Serge though. Discriminate, im does.”

“Ah, pashang fong, ‘Mina,” a man’s voice bellowed, the pejorative softened by his loving tone. His head appeared on Naomi’s device, upside down at the top of the frame. “Mi behave, promise.” They all three laughed together, a contagious sound that put a smile on Naomi’s face. 

Camina’s family was as affectionate as it was functional, and any jealousy was squandered as soon as it sprouted through open networks of communication. They didn’t all sleep in the same bed, or all have sex at the same time, or spend every waking hour together, the six of them, but they loved each other equally just the same. They didn’t all keep score of their ‘wins’ and ‘losses’— surely Michio didn’t feel left out if Oksana got milkshakes with Josep one day, and Drummer didn’t pout if Serge chose to shower with Bertold instead of her. They found a balance together, where everyone was included, even in the moments when they weren’t. They’d be good role models. 

“Alright, we’ll be there,” Naomi said, excitement written on her face. When the phone call was over, she turned her attention to the door. Amos was taking longer than anticipated. She supposed she’d have to find some way to occupy herself until he returned. 

***

Josep’s cooking was so spicy that it felt like a targeted attack. Holden was the only one who seemed to notice— which only furthered his suspicions that it was a deliberate poisoning— though he knew he was just wimpier than anyone else in the room. Otherwise, Holden, Naomi, and Amos were welcomed warmly into Drummer’s home like members of the family. 

They each had their own unique flavor of advice, ranging from categorically unhelpful to actually something to think about, spoken in different degrees of broken English or part-English part-Belter. Holden appreciated the great effort they went to to be understood by him. They probably had very little use for pure English in their day-to-day lives, and the grammar of Lang Belta was very different, more efficient. It made some of their translations a little hard for Holden to process, but if they could make the effort, so could he. 

“Da pashang gut?” Serge asked. In the time it took Holden to decide if he was comfortable answering whether they had good sex, Amos and Naomi had already given their yesses. “Gut. The rest figure itself out.” 

“That’s terrible advice,” interjected Michio. 

“Work for me an’ Josep this morning,” he shrugged. “Take too long in shower. Mi angry. Join him in shower, mi na so angry.” Michio rolled her eyes. 

“It’s not about sex,” she said. “You can have good sex and no love for each other.”

“Like in Camina dream about Holden,” Serge contributed. Holden didn’t know what to do with that information. Naomi seemed to like it. 

“I’ve had that dream,” Amos added. Holden elbowed him. 

“Sure, like that,” dismissed Michio. “It’s not about sex; it’s about trust. You trust your family will never hurt you on purpose?” she asked. The three of them nodded. “You forgive your family when they make a mistake?” she asked. They nodded. “Then you can forgive your family for anything.” That was pretty solid advice, but nothing Holden didn’t already know. They were good at forgiving each other. Had practice. 

“How do you keep everything…” Holden searched for the word, “...equal?”

“Equal? Who cares equal?” replied Bertold. “Not equal. Camina in charge. Like Naomi for you.”

“Naomi’s not—” Holden said, then backed down. It was true enough. 

“Ya. No need for equal.” 

“Is there ever jealousy? Like, if you spend more time with one person than another.” A couple of them, including Amos, looked at him like that was the stupidest question ever asked.

“That’s baby shit, kopeng,” Bertold said. “Need comfort, ask Oksana. Need tough love, ask Camina. Need fix problem, ask Michio. Need laugh, ask Josep. Need blow job, ask Serge.” 

“Hey,” Serge defended. “I’m funny, too.” 

“Ya, baby,” Bertold consoled. “I just simplify for explain. Different for others, or depend on the day. Point is, na equal. Need comfort four time, tough love one, then go Oksana four time, Camina one. ‘Mina no cry ‘bout it. Because adult. Knows mi love im the same.” Drummer smiled at him. Holden had never seen Drummer smile as bright or as often as he had that night. “End of day, eat dinner as family, go bed happy.” 

“Huh,” said Holden. “That… makes a lot of sense, thank you.”

“Try not to think so hard, Jimmy,” said Drummer. “Have some cake. Not so spicy.”

“Gee, thanks.”

***

The third or fourth time it was passed to her, Naomi took another long, luxurious puff off of Drummer’s vaporizer. She tried to pass it behind her to Jim (whose lap she didn’t think she’d been sitting in when Camina first pulled out the device) but he declined as always. Naomi presumed the captain was afraid of what slutty business he might get up to under the influence of high-grade synthetic cannabis in a room full of incredibly hot people. She couldn’t blame him, but it wouldn’t stop her from having a good time. Amos also clearly had no such reservations. 

“So,” he said between two smaller puffs (Earthers with their puff, puff, pass bullshit), “what’s the sex like?” 

“Amos, you can’t just ask people that,” Jim scolded. In rebuttal, Amos took his second puff and blew it in Jim’s face. Soberly, Naomi might’ve been on Jim’s side of that argument, but she was high and curious. Amos looked at Serge, who seemed the most likely to answer the question rather than flip him off. 

“All six of you screw together, or is it a Noah’s Ark kinda deal?” Amos asked. Serge shrugged. 

“Sometimes all six, sometimes three, sometimes two,” he said. 

“Maybe sometimes nine,” added Josep lewdly, eyeing the three guests. Amos smiled salaciously, while scattered laughter filled the room. Camina cleared her throat and shook her head. 

“What did I say?” she chided. 

“Dinner, not orgy,” Josep said. 

“Don’t see why it can’t be both,” said Amos. Jim elbowed him. 

As her Earther lovers mingled with her Belter friends, new and old, Naomi felt a sense of wholeness. Her worlds were colliding— this time in a harmonious way, not an explosive one. She didn’t know if it was the THC in her lungs or the love in her life, but she was on top of the world. 

Michio was teaching Amos and Jim an old Belter card game when Naomi was overcome with a powerful urge to speak privately with Camina. Several faces quirked suggestively as she pulled her friend from the mass of cuddling bodies on the living room floor. Apparently Amos wasn’t the only one with preconceived notions about their friendship. She ignored them and guided Camina into the next room, which only happened to be the bedroom. 

“Don’t think I’ve ever seen you this happy, Camina,” she said once they were in another room. Camina hummed and nodded, the corners of her mouth quirking up into a small smile. The weed seemed to unburden her considerably, though a deeper happiness radiated from her even before they’d smoked. Her hair was down, and it felt to Naomi like a metaphor. 

“Don’t think I ever have been,” she said. Naomi took her hand and squeezed it, beaming with pride. Camina’s expression soured almost imperceptibly; her smile was still present, though it spoke of an old, tired sadness, or perhaps just a more reluctant version of joy. “Spent a long time wanting something I could not have.” She looked Naomi up and down, and the message was heard loud and clear. That bitter-sweet smile. The harbinger of closure. 

“Ended up with something better, no?” 

“Think so,” Camina answered. Her eyes widened as she asked, and there was a youthfulness in her face that Naomi hadn’t seen before, like a child seeking approval. Naomi didn’t think Camina needed her approval, but she gave it readily. 

“I know so. Oksana looks at you like you painted the stars in the sky. You deserve that.” 

“Same way Jimmy looks at you.”  

“Same way Amos looks at my boobs,” Naomi countered. They both laughed. “You deserve to be happy, Camina Drummer. Are you?” 

“Ya, Naomi Nagata. Have everything I ever wanted, and more. Could not have imagined having something this good until it happened.”  

“I know what you mean,” Naomi said wistfully, thinking of Amos and Jim. 

“You happy, too?” Camina asked. 

“Ya,” answered Naomi, easily and honestly. Have everything I ever wanted, and more. “Mi xush.” Naomi pressed her forehead to Camina’s, and they shared their happiness together for a moment. 

“Gut.” 

“So... what’s this dream you had about Jim?” 

“Oh hush.” 

***

“You think they’re fooling around?” Amos asked the group of people whose names he didn’t know. Holden elbowed him for the third time that night. “Bug, at some point, you’re gonna have to realize jabbing me in the ribs ain’t gonna stop me from sayin’ shit.” 

“What will?” Holden asked. Amos didn’t answer, just pointed his eyes down at Holden’s crotch, and figured he got the message when he received yet another nudge to his side. He laughed,  took his turn in the card game, and hit the vape when it came around again. 

“Could I ask you something, big man?” asked the guy with the triangle tattoos beside his eyes. Amos shrugged his permission. The guy took a second to say anything else, like he was trying to word his question. He whispered something to the man at his side. 

“Ah,” the second man said, “wants to know if you have Earther cock.” Amos didn’t know what that meant. “You know, like…” he gave an inscrutable gesture, like jerking off, but not quite. “No skin.” 

“Josep,” came a scolding female voice. Amos didn’t mind. 

“Oh. Yeah, I’m circumcised.” The two men, one of whom must’ve been Josep, not that Amos would retain that information, seemed fascinated by that. He was about to ask if they wanted to see it when Naomi and her girlfriend came back. Another time, then. 

[nearlymanaged]

2. Falling Out and Crushing

“Did anyone else notice that Snivellus hasn’t been hanging around Evans all the time lately?” James plopped down into a seat at the Gryffindor table at lunch, halfway through their first week back at Hogwarts.

“They don’t even sit together at Potions anymore,” Peter added. 

“In fact, it appears that they try to sit as far away from each other as physically possible without leaving the classroom.” James’ eyes gleamed with mischievous excitement.

“That’s all very well, but if you haven’t noticed, Evans did not reject you three hundred times because of Snivellus. She’s just not into you,” Sirius shrugged.

“Yes, she is. She just doesn’t realise it yet.”

“Bordering on creepy a bit there, James,” Remus mumbled without tearing his eyes off his copy of The Standard Book of Spells that he had propped against a jug of pumpkin juice.

“I think you meant romantic, Moons.”

“No, I think I meant creepy,” Remus replied happily. “Either way, I’d have to disagree with SIrius this time - this turn of events might, in fact, lend itself to helping you woo her. I happened to overhear her talking to her friends after Care of Magical Creatures. She was telling them she’d first go out with that vile James Potter before making up with Snape. Apparently, they fell out at the end of last year and it sounded like she categorically rejected his only attempt at making amends over the summer.”

James goggled at Remus with a half chewed mouthful of food, then quickly swallowed with some difficulty, and frowned. “Why am I only hearing this now!?” 

“I haven’t seen you since I found out… I’ll send an owl next time.”

“This changes everything…” A strange, dreamy yet still mischievous smile returned to James’ face and he spent the rest of lunch not contributing to the group’s conversation much.

“Moony,” Sirius sat up and turned his whole body towards his friend. “How do you always know about these things?”

“I’m in the right place at the right time a lot. It’s easy when people don’t really notice you.”

“What are you talking about? Who doesn’t notice you?”

“Nothing…” Remus waved him off. He didn’t feel like diving into a tirade about how he feels invisible most of the time, and the rest - people just gape at his scars as though he’s some grotesque old antique collecting dust at Borgin and Burkes. He wasn’t even sure why he started thinking about that now.

“I think I’m going to ask Lydia Rooks out,” Peter said vaguely, gazing at a dark haired Hufflepuff girl across the Great Hall.

“Good for you!” Sirius patted his friend on the back, causing him to spill juice down his front. “Oh, sorry. You can’t really see it, she won’t notice,” he added, inspecting the damage done.

“Wh-- Oh, I’m not doing it now!”

“Why not?”

“There’s people around! What if she says no?” Peter gaped at Sirius and then at the girl again.

“I don’t know...you walk back here?” Sirius offered, sounding confused as to why that was a concern for Peter.

“Have you ever been rejected in front of the entire school and then had to walk back to your seat? Again, in front of the entire school?”

“Hm. Nope, not that I can remember.”

“Yeah, didn’t think so...”

Remus didn’t really hear the rest of that conversation because his thoughts were hurtling down a memory lane filled with all the girls Sirius had ever asked out or been asked out by. For a fleeting moment, he’d wished he could like girls too, instead of boys, not to mention - one of his best friends. But then he had to admit to himself that just that thought alone felt wrong and weird. Almost as wrong and weird as his actual experiences with girls.

“Are you okay, Moony?”

“Huh?” Remus lifted his eyes to Sirius’ face.

“You’re scowling. Is the school year already taking a toll on your pretty face?”

Remus rolled his eyes, now feeling a little annoyed. He thought it was a bit of a low blow, but of course, he knew Sirius didn’t mean anything by it. Either way, what did it matter whether he was pretty or not, there were more important things in life. Or so Remus tried to convince himself...

“What do we have now?” Peter asked just as they were getting up from the Gryffindor table.

“You two,” Remus indicated him and James. “Have some free time to catch up on your homework. While me and - miraculously - SIrius are off to History of Magic.”

“Miraculously? What is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. I suppose I never realised you harboured a secret passion for listening to Binns for forty-five minutes to an hour and a half at a time.”

 * * *

This was the third History of Magic lesson of the term that professor Binns began with the same spiel about the grave importance of their N.E.W.T.’s; Sirius was pretending to listen, holding up his head in his hand, but his mind was completely elsewhere. In fact, his mind kept wandering to the same thing, over and over again, since the morning at King’s Cross station…. 

How come Remus was five or six inches taller than him all of a sudden? And why did Sirius kind of like that? And how come his long, freckled arms were so nice to look at? And why did his voice sound so mesmerising? It’s as if Remus spent the summer drinking some kind of a potion that turned him from one of Sirius’ best friends into a beautiful, enigmatic creature that Black could not ignore, no matter how much he tried. 

As a matter of fact, he didn’t try to ignore Remus at all. Quite the contrary, he was giving in to this new-risen curiosity. He was comparing how he saw James and Peter, his best mates, to the giddy happiness he felt when he was around Remus. And, frankly, it didn’t take a genius to deduct that Sirius had a crush on his friend. Just as he formulated this thought in his head, he glanced around the classroom, as if to make sure that no one was watching him, reading his mind. Then he leaned back in his chair, balancing it on two hind legs, his gaze landing on Remus’ concentrated profile. Yeah, he’d had enough experience with these sort of things to know it - he had a crush on his friend.

SIrius was notorious for developing crushes in seconds, sometimes multiple times a day even. He’d snog a girl one day and then go out with her best friend the next week, and the truth was that he genuinely liked them all. It wasn’t a game, as some of his previous romances had accused him of. But he was having loads of fun and enjoying himself immensely. He’d just never had a crush on a boy, which made it all the more exciting.

“Well, well, well…” He mumbled under his breath, wondering what changed about Moony to make him so attractive out of the blue. Perhaps it wasn’t completely out of the blue; naturally, he’d always felt a certain kind of love and admiration towards his friend...

“Huh?” Remus cast him a distracted glance but then took a double take. “What?”

“What?”

“Why are you staring at me like that?”

“Have you been going out with anyone this summer?” SIrius blurted out without thinking.

“No…”

“Hm. Didn’t think so. You would have mentioned it in your letters. You seem the type.”

“Excuse me, what type?” Remus snorted.

“The swooning type.”

“I am not the swooning type!” Remus whispered loudly, causing a few people to glance around in confusion. “What in Merlin’s beard are you talking about?”

“Have your eyes always been this green?” As soon as the words left Sirius’ mouth, he sobered and landed his chair on all four legs. He flashed a quick grin at Remus, who seemed to still be trying to figure out what was going on, and pointedly turned to look at professor Binns.

He shouldn’t be doing this. This is his friend Remus. Moony. He’s not a random girl from one of the other houses, or a pretty Muggle next door. This is Moony. Sirius can’t be so flippant about it...or else, it would result in a friendship-destroying disaster.

And anyway, not like Moony ever showed any interest in him, or any other boy. This was similar to all the other crushes SIrius had had, but also very different - it was highly unlikely to ever turn into anything. Perhaps Sirius just needed to wait it out, become interested in someone else (as he always eventually did), and move on.

But his thoughts refused to move on from the topic for the rest of the lesson. Remus had never been girl-crazy, as long as they’d known each other. He’d been on a few dates here and there, but he was never the one initiating them. Sirius had always assumed that his friend was just really picky, but maybe that wasn’t it. Maybe the problem resulting in a series of mediocre first dates was the fact that… No, it couldn’t be it. Maybe it was just that Remus was such a poised, controlled person - maybe he simply didn’t care for something as reckless and trivial as teenage emotions and urges. But maybe…

[canyouhearthelight]

The Miys, Ch. 89

Wee-oo-oooooooooooo!

I thought long and hard about this chapter before writing it, and it just felt like it fit more into the narrative. Will it raise questions later? Probably.  Am I prepared to answer those questions?  I’m pretty sure.

Thank you, @satan-parisienne for being such a lovely person to bounce ideas off of, and for being an amazing sister (real and fictional).

The following week was a fog of exhaustion and mind-numbing soreness.  Tyche insisted on sparring each night, either with fencing or some other form of combat, while adamantly refusing to speak other than instructions and taunts regarding my form.  Any stretching to relieve my over-worked body had to be done in the gym, at home, or in my office, as those were the only three places I was allowed for the time being.  I didn’t even have the relief of walking to stretch my legs, since any time I spent in transit was seated on a transport with two escorts, one on either side.

Conor and Maverick were as patient with me as could be expected, but I could readily admit that I was in a sullen mood and would have done anything for some privacy.  Eventually, they both told Tyche to come keep an eye on me herself, they both needed some space.  Since she had been working me to the bone, not to mention was responsible for my ongoing rotation of guards, she was honestly the last person I wanted to see at the moment.  The second she walked in the door, the feeling was clearly mutual - she wouldn’t even look at me, just stood staring at one of my plants, arms crossed.

“You couldn’t even bring Mac with you?” I glared.

“I haven’t seen him in two weeks,” she snarled back. “Pretty sure you scared him off with your crappy attitude.”

“Maybe it’s because I haven’t had five minutes to myself in the past fucking week,” I muttered, turning away from her. Stomping into the kitchen, I got two cups of coffee, set one on the end of the table closest to her with a thunk - being angry didn’t mean I was going to be rude - before flopping down in her favorite armchair.

The next hour was the most tense round of sipping my walls had ever seen. She surrendered first, standing to pace. “Where the hell are they? They didn’t say how long they would be gone.”

Before I could respond, a chirp came from the ceiling. “Human Conor and Human Maverick are at the Undine, playing a Terran game with needles and a target.  They advised me when they left that they would return when both of you have categorized your defecation, although I am not entirely sure what that means.”

Against my will, a snort of laughter almost sprayed my coffee onto the deck. Tyche’s eyes tracked as she parsed what was just said, and I recognized her scowl as the one she used to keep from laughing. “I know for a fact that you have a better grasp of human euphemisms than that. You knew what they meant.”

“Simon has informed me that it is a standard Terran practice to diffuse tense situations with humor. Did I do it wrong?”

“We aren’t tense,” she argued.

“Tyche. There is currently less strain detected in the hull plating than there is in that room. Please re-evaluate your statement.”

She gaped like a fish at the remark, while I dissolved into breathless laughter. “Oh my gods, who taught you to say things like that?”

“Several humans on the Ark display a propensity for conversational rejoinders using wit. I find it very unique and pleasing.”

“I don’t care how witty you think you’re being, we don’t need to sort our shit out,” Tyche asserted airily.

It was my turn to gape. “You have me under house arrest! Don’t you think that needs to be addressed!?”

I was less than intimidated by the finger she pointed at me with, despite her gesturing like it was loaded. “First of all, it’s a protective detail, not house arrest. You’re free to go wherever you want, in a transport, with escorts.”

“How is that any - “

“Second of all,” she raised her voice to interrupt me. “Do you really think I have the authority to make that decision?  Yeah, you’re my sister, and I love you, but you are also my boss, dork. Not the other way around.”

Every processor that I joked existed in my head stopped with a grinding screech. How fucking stupid am I? “You mean to tell me I could have just walked off at any point?”

“Pfffft. No.” Annnnnnd now she was looking at me like I was an idiot.  “I mean, you can try. But the door won’t open.”

If I wasn’t already sitting down, I’d have fallen on my ass. It hurt itself in its confusion! Something supplied from the back of my head.  “So. I’m not on house arrest, but I also can’t walk out that door by myself. You don’t have the authority to assign a protective detail to me, but you did assign a rotation of escorts… Ohhhhhhh.”  Apparently ‘turning it off and back on again’ worked for mental processors, too.  “I am under house arrest, or protective custody, or whatever, but it wasn’t your call.”

“Finally!” she threw her hands in the air and flopped elegantly across my couch.

“Which means it was someone on the Council. So Xiomara did this.”

An exhausted thumbs-up popped comically from the pile of scarves and sweaters formerly known as my sister.

“Why didn’t you just tell me that?” I demanded angrily, chucking a pillow where I thought her head was.

A muffled voice came from under the pillow. “I did manage to make sure you actually like and trust your escorts.”

“What do you mean my escorts? Who else’s… The entire Council?”

The thumb popped back up.

“And you couldn’t tell me.”

Second thumb.

“Why not?”

One hand dropped and the other flashed me a middle finger.

“Okay, can’t answer that either.” I thought for a minute. “Can’t as in, not supposed to, or can’t, as in you don’t know?”

Index finger. First one.

“Is there a penalty if you do tell me?”

Thumbs down.

“So, really, there’s not anything stopping you from telling me except you keeping your word,” I pointed out.

Thumbs down.

Wait, what?

“There is something other than your word keeping you from telling me, but it’s not a penalty.”

Thumbs up.

“You literally can’t tell me, can you?”

Thumb still up. That explained the twenty-questions game, and her terseness lately.

“Are you physically incapable of making the words go, or is something preventing the words from getting there once they go?”

Two fingers. Second option.

“What is Xiomara thinking!?” I blurted angrily.  “This is over the line. She may have the authority to put the Council under watch for our safety, since Safety is her jurisdiction, but dinking around in your head!?  She can’t do that!”

I glanced back at Tyche, her hand in a thumbs down. “Something I said was wrong.” Thumb up. “She doesn’t have the authority to go poking around in your head.”

Thumb stayed up.

“Who does?”

She flapped her hand. Apparently can’t tell me that either.

“Did they have your permission to do this?”

Tyche made a ‘sort of’ waver with her hand before giving a thumbs-up.  At this point I wanted to scream in frustration. 

Keeping my eyes on her hand, I started talking, playing a sort of hot and cold. “The only person who has the authority to poke around in your head is you…” Thumb up. “Unless you’re unconscious.” Thumb down. “So you were awake and aware, and gave permission…..” Sort of, yeah, again. “But someone suggested it…” Thumb up. “Was it Xiomara?” Thumb down. “Antoine?” Thumb down. “Was anyone else in the room?” Thumb down, to my relief.

Wait. Thumb down?

“This was your idea!?” I shrieked, resisting the urge to tackle her when she gave a thumbs up.  “And you thought I was being an idiot!? Tyche, how could you do that!?”

She sat up, gasping for air. “I knew I would tell you at some point.  I let it slip a dozen times, and you were so distracted you didn’t notice. So, since Antoine and Derek were clever enough to set up the proximity alerts for those of us who are triggered by random strangers touching us, I asked if whop could set it up so you couldn’t hear me, even if I did slip.”

Hang on. “Say that last part again, slower.”

 “I asked if wherb could set it up so you couldn’t hear me, even if I did slip.”

“Oh my gods,” I whispered. “That’s why you haven’t been talking.  It’s garbled when you say something I shouldn’t hear, isn’t it?”

She nodded and started talking. It sounded like someone speaking backwards, through a voice distorter, while underwater. “Tyche, it sounds like I’m having another stroke.”

She nodded, and made a ‘keep going’ gesture. 

“It’s supposed to, isn’t it? Because even though the brain damage was fixed and I can hear fine now, I had hearing issues for so long that you knew I would brush it off and not think anything of it.”

She nodded again, lips pressed in a firm line. “Because I would notice not hearing you at all, or any noise replacing it, or anything like that. But I literally never noticed that my hearing was garbled again until I was looking for it. Which I wouldn’t, because I should be able to hear fine.”

“Yep,” she confirmed with a firm, final nod.

“Sneaky bitch,” I muttered.  It was clever, I had to give her that.  I thought back over the past week and all our interactions, trying to determine if any specific topics triggered the parts I couldn’t understand. I started at the day she punched me, and something stood out in screaming neon with alarm bells attached.  “We.  When you were chewing me out in the gym that day, you kept saying ‘we’. We were counting on Bjornson thinking I’m helpless. We thought we had the advantage.” I paused as one sentence stood out, even clearer and louder than the rest. “This time, he’s got more people than Arantxa did, but we thought we had the advantage…. Because we knew who they were, we knew what they thought…”  I focused on her, and felt nothing but fear and confusion as I whispered. “Tyche, how do you know who they are and what they think? How deep into this did Xio drag you?”

 She stared at me, wide-eyed and helpless as garbled words fell from her lips.

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[redsector-a]

Aaaaaahh, can you tell me more about the President's son/Bodyguard AU? I know we've talked about it before but it just *clenches tiny fist* sounds so awesome. Also, I have never in my life watched a hockey game but for some reason, I love hockey AUs. A little something for the starving, please? 🤩

So for those that don’t know the President’s son/Bodyguard AU is one in which Bucky is the son of current president Winnifred Barnes (and former Pres George Barnes - basically he grew up in the spotlight not unlike the Kennedy kids). There is an attempt on his life and, in order to protect him, the Secret Service assigns Agent Clint Barton to pose as his boyfriend. Shenanigans ensue.  The opening scene is at a party and Bucky’s pov - he’s been flirting with a hot waiter and having a good time and then the following kinda sucky action scene happens. lol ~Bucky had just finished a bacon wrapped scallop when he heard a pop. It took a second to register that it wasn't just an average sound but rather the sound of gunfire. Between one blink and the next though Natasha was covering his body with her own and shoving him towards the fence. They had just slipped through an opening and onto the sidewalk when another shot rang out and Natasha made a noise.

“You've been hit!” Bucky said feeling very slow and then a car pulled up to the curb. Natasha wrenched open the door and Bucky expected Gabe to be in the driver seat when he climbed in, a third shot screaming off the car where his head had been a moment before. Instead he saw the face of the Hot Waiter peering over the seats.

Natasha dove in herself and she bit out “Just drive!” when hot waiter's eyes widened at the sight of her bloody shoulder but did as he was told, pulling out into traffic and taking off at a speed that surprised Bucky.

“We need to get her to the hospital,” Bucky called out.

“Negative – we need to get you to safety first,” Natasha gritted out and Bucky removed his jacket to give to her to hold against the wound.

“He's got a point Nat,” Hot Waiter said, swerving in and out of traffic with an ease that would've turned Bucky on under different circumstances.

“Just drive Clint!” Natasha said through a wince. “We need to get him to safety.” She turned her gaze to Bucky. “You're not hit at all, are you?”

“No, and it's all thanks to you,” he said feeling inadequate and confused. He knew it was Natasha's job to look out for him and that in fact she would take a bullet for him but knowing that and actually experiencing it first hand were two very different things. He pressed a little harder against the jacket covered wound on Natasha's shoulder. She was losing blood...

Confusion was edging a little into anger when combined with his worry for Natasha because who the fuck was the Hot Waiter? Well, Clint apparently was his name and he was on a first name basis with Natasha which meant... “Which fucking alphabet agency do you belong to?” Bucky asked Clint.

Clint didn't answer, sharply changing lanes at the last moment to grab an exit. Bucky had no idea where they were.

Eventually, Clint pulled up in front of an apartment complex, throwing the car in park and tossing a set of keys back to Bucky who juggled them briefly but didn't drop them. Clint was at the door a moment later, helping Bucky out, then helping Natasha who was looking a little pale but not as bad as Bucky had been worried. The trio made their way inside  and up to a fourth floor apartment.

“Who the fuck are you?” Bucky said getting up into Clint's personal space as soon as the door shut.

“Special Agent Clint Barton – you're welcome for saving your life by the way.” He was entirely too calm and that annoyed Bucky even more.

“I think Nat mainly did that.”

“That she did – now you want to cuss me out or let me take a look at her?” --- Re hockey AU’s...man I have like a few starts and stops for NHL level ones and then the college one is more of an idea. Here is a snippet of one possibility - with bonus Deadpool! ~“Hey hey if it isn't the sensual hockey God I know and love,” a voice called out and Bucky's stomach twisted at the way Clint laughed in reply. How throaty and pleased it sounded. Why this would bother him and how he'd come to categorize Clint's laughs was low on his list of priorities of things to figure out. “Jesus Wade, we've already got a date tonight you don't need to lay it on any thicker,” came Clint's reply and Bucky's stomach lurched again because date? What? “Who says I'm laying anything on thick?” Wade Wilson, winger for the New Jersey Devils, said as he sauntered into their lounge area like he owned the place. “Jeff Gillooly! How you doing?” He offered his hand to Bucky and it was only by reflex that he took it. “Shit that's who you look like!” Clint said with a  chuckle as he glanced over at Bucky. “Well, a hotter version of the real guy.” “Agreed, way hotter,” Wade chimed in and Bucky was so confused he almost didn't realize he was blushing. “Oh now that's just precious.” And he realized Wade was talking about him and he rolled his eyes and went back to gathering his things. “You guys have a date tonight?” Bucky found himself asking, pleased he sounded neutral and then curious as to why sounding that was was important. Actually no, it made sense, he didn't want to sound like an asshole if Clint had a date with another man. He wasn't in the closet as deeply as Bucky was, it made sense that he was dating. “After years of pining he finally said yes,” Wade replied, hand on his chest. “You were not pining for years,” Clint replied, shoving his shoulder lightly and they both laughed. “But yeah, I figured why not when Wade asked – though it was hard to figure out if he was kidding all things considered.” “No one ever kids about wanting to date you, Barton.” Wade said, voice sincere. “Ain't that right Barnes?” ---- WIP Ask Game

[dweemeister]

Aaron Loves Angela (1975)

The protests following the death of George Floyd have ignited debates about police militarization and tactics in the United States. They have also reenergized, in some cases mainstreamed, a discussion about what is celebrated in popular culture. Some have argued that certain films should not be available for consumption because they have espoused white supremacist values or have merely depicted white supremacy – an argument that this blog rejects in favor of contextualization and curation. By many of those same critics’ hypothetical standards towards how black people can or should be depicted, blaxploitation films might be considered too problematic to show. Blaxploitation, a subgenre of exploitation film, rose and fell in the early- and mid-1970s. It featured majority-black (if not all-black) casts, but the characters they depicted often reinforced violent and sexualized stereotypes under the guise of empowerment.

Among the directors central to blaxploitation were Gordon Parks (1969’s The Learning Tree, 1971’s Shaft; the former is the first film directed by an African-American for a major Hollywood movie studio) and his son, Gordon Parks Jr. Released by Paramount, the younger Parks’ fourth and final film, Aaron Loves Angela, is a confounding film that cannot be cleanly categorized within the blaxploitation subgenre. At times, Aaron Loves Angela looks as if it will be played as a straight teenage coming-of-age or interracial romance film peripherally adapted from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, but a poorly written criminal subplot direct from low-rent blaxploitation fails to connect with the central drama. As disappointing as the execution is, the film’s interracial romance and – at least when the film focuses on the title characters – its framing through the star-crossed lovers is unlike anything of its kind in mid-1970s American cinema.

It is the early 1970s in Harlem. De facto segregation between blacks and Puerto Ricans does nothing to quell a simmering racial animosity. Two 15-year-olds – Aaron James (Kevin Hooks) and Angela Sanchez (Irene Cara in her film debut) – have a wordless, chance meeting during a high school basketball game. They gaze in each other’s eyes, with that tingly feeling in their stomachs. Of course, that tingly feeling is overwhelming and inconducive to winning a basketball game. Yes, Aaron’s team loses the game and a (predictable) bench-clearing brawl occurs. Aaron and Angela, despite their knowledge that most of their friends and family would disapprove, begin to see each other. Both are the only child in a single-parent household. He lives with his resentful father, Ike (Moses Gunn), once a promising American football player whose career ended due to injury, and too often stating his desire to see his son play professional basketball. She lives with her mother, and has never lived in one place long enough to make lasting friends.

Just as Aaron and Angela start their relationship, screenwriter Gerald Sanford (a journeyman television writer credited with episodes of Barnaby Jones and CHiPs) drops in a subplot that sidetracks the film so much that it not only undermines the budding story of the protagonists, but it seems as if it came from an entirely different film. In Aaron’s apartment building, drug dealer and pimp Beau (Robert Hooks; Kevin’s father) reels in Aaron on a narcotics deal with the Italian-American mafia. Aaron agrees to help for no good reason. Sanford’s inclusion of Beau and his girlfriend Cleo (Ernestine Jackson; whose character commits statutory rape) is an attempt to justify the film’s careening turns into a blaxploitation crime drama – a shootout, a climactic vehicular pursuit with innocent minors endangered. Considering how the film begins, its title, its ostensible spotlighting of two actors in a rarely-produced subgenre of romance, the subplot is a detriment to the young actors’ performances – there are genuine moments of tenderness, but not nearly enough – and the way their characters are written.

Romeo and Juliet displayed interest in developing the young Montague and Capulet; West Side Story affords the music and space for the audience to know Maria and Tony. Aaron and Angela favors the former, with the latter’s personality, family and friends, and ambitions reduced to her attraction to Aaron and nothing else. That Sanford and Parks are so disinterested in imbuing Angela with any character depth is an encapsulation of how carelessly they handle the story. As the criminal subplot begins to overstep its welcome, the amount of time directed towards Angela (without Aaron doting on her) and the Puerto Rican community evaporates. The film’s incuriosity towards its female and Puerto Rican characters probably should have been expected given the nature of exploitation films, but it is nevertheless dispiriting to see this sort of storytelling recklessness for a perspective seldom seen in American filmmaking.

The drug deal subplot also reduces the screentime for the best performance in Aaron Loves Angela. Moses Gunn, as Ike, is excellent here. He vacillates between fits of alcoholic rage and uttering thoughts regretted the moment after their delivery to sober melancholy and overbearing parenting. Stereotypes of black fatherhood in American mainstream media will often have the father be absent from their child’s life, sometimes simply unsupportive, and occasionally involved in criminal enterprise. Certainly, Ike exudes hostility and bitterness – which, on its face, appears to uphold those historic negative stereotypes frequently seen in movies (not just blaxploitation films). Noting his brief, injury-ended professional football career, that depthless well of antipathy is justified – in recent years, the National Football League (NFL) has been criticized for neglecting the financial and physical wellbeing of its retired players. Parks and Sanford should receive some credit, even if this is accidental, for providing dimension to a black father’s negative behavior. The film does not condone Ike’s behavior towards Aaron, but it retains some sympathy for the embattled father – something that might not have been perceptible with anything but a solid turn by Gunn. As Ike, Gunn plays a lifetime haunted by ghosts of glory.

Aaron Loves Angela also boasts songs by Puerto Rican singer/songwriter José Feliciano (who has a cameo in the film; some of the songs were co-written by his then-wife, Janna Merlyn Feliciano). The best and most notable feature of the code-switching soundtrack is “Angela”, played over the film’s opening credits. “Angela” is an impassioned song, strummed along to Feliciano’s signature guitar along with rolling string harmonies that make the piece distinctively Feliciano’s. The English-language version of “Angela” has not received much attention due to Aaron and Angela’s lack of success at the box office and contemporary obscurity, but the Spanish-language “Angela” (with a Spanish “g” pronounced as an “h”) was a generational hit among Spanish speakers. Irene Cara, a skilled vocalist (as any fan of 1980’s Fame will tell you), does not sing in this film.

Following Aaron Loves Angela, Gordon Parks Jr. formed a new production company, Africa International Pictures, and set to work on his newest project, an adventure film entitled Revenge. At least one-third of Revenge was completed when, on April 3, 1979, Parks and three others perished in an airplane crash that occurred shortly after takeoff. Revenge was never completed. The younger George Parks was survived by his father. For the young actors, they continued to work in the entertainment industry albeit thriving in different mediums. Kevin Hooks left acting to become a television producer and director while Irene Cara would become better known for her musical career (“Fame”, “Flashdance… What a Feeling”) than for her acting.

Movies centered on an interracial romance, let alone youthful interracial romance, are almost never distributed by major movie studios. Often consigned to smaller, independent studios and limited theatrical releases, these films deserve to have an audience. For Aaron Loves Angela, this was a film made by an established Hollywood studio, but apparently floundered with audiences – explanations for its lack of financial success are almost nil in freely-available literature because of the film’s obscurity.

Here is an attempt at inference. By 1973, the blaxploitation subgenre had been protested by civil rights groups and disgruntled actors and directors under the banner of the Black Artists Alliance because of their portrayals of black characters. Studio executives took notice of these protests, and the blaxploitation film would be in terminal decline for the remainder of the decade – these protests occurred even though these films provided black actors and actresses with a volume of starring roles that had never been seen in American cinema. With its 1975 release, Aaron Loves Angela arrived during the subgenre’s hasty decline. It is not an accomplished film, but Aaron Loves Angela’s central conceit – a film centered on African-American and Puerto Rican teenagers in a relationship – has unfortunately been buried due to the timing of its release. The virtuous qualities and cultural damage of films like Aaron Loves Angela and blaxploitation in general remain an open debate – one that deserves the recognition of nuance and previously unheard voices to help guide.

My rating: 5/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

[recurring-polynya]

Sometimes, when I don’t feel like writing the things I am supposed to be working on, I have a document worth of drabbley post-TYBWA stuff where I’m working out how Renji and Rukia actually manage to get family-approval for their relationship and subsequently get married. It’s pretty rough and I never finish any of the parts.

In any case, @sillier-things mentioned recently that she liked stories about making babies and I told her I would write her a drabble, so I wrote a little story about family planning, because I am a thirty-eight year old, deeply boring woman, and because I need, in my heart, for Ichika to have been extremely planned.

So, I wrote this, mostly for me, and I hope you like it, too. If you don’t, I’ll just write you another one. Takes place in the late fall, between the TYBWA and their wedding, they are betrothed. (Renji likes to pronounce “betrothed” with three syllables and in his Byakuya voice). PG for some raunchy sex talk.

Some background from the other parts that maybe I’ll finish someday?:

- Renji beat Byakuya in a fight and then turned in his paperwork for dating Rukia

- Byakuya was will to let Renji marry into the Kuchiki family, but Renji realized that Rukia would be happier living a more independent life, and asked Byakuya if she could marry out of the family instead. Byakuya refused to let her marry a nobody, so he did what anyone would: named Renji his vassal.

- Renji somehow managed to buy a house that his 4th Seat won in a poker game off some other noble idiot (I wrote this part once when I got really nostalgic about their house from Between Tides, I told you I was a deeply boring person)

- Byakuya is not as recovered from his fight with As Nodt as everyone thinks he is. (Renji and Rukia know, tho)

Rukia sat on a tall bar stool, while Renji stuffed gyoza on the other side of the kitchen island. She was going down a long checklist. “Last one!”

“Surely not!”

“Surely yes! Do you want to use the good silver chopsticks?”

“The ones that are slippery as hell? No.”

“You’re getting pretty good at them,” Rukia said, propping one elbow up on the counter.

“I’m not worried about me. We get to invite our friends to this thing, too, right? In addition to all 900 of your relatives?”

“They’re your relatives now, too, Mr. Branch Family Head,” Rukia reminded him. “Whether you marry me or not. And yes, we can invite our friends to this thing, or as I like to call it, our wedding.”

Renji plopped another dumpling onto his tray. “Well, I don’t want Ikkaku to shove a metal chopstick in my ear on my wedding day, so can we please use normal ones? Is that allowed?”

“We can use the second most fancy chopsticks, I still wouldn’t categorize them as ‘normal.’”

“So, is that it? You’re really out of questions?”

“I’m out of wedding-related questions. You still haven’t told me why you’re making enough gyoza to feed your entire squad.”

“Because it’s easier to make them in big batches, they freeze really well.”

Rukia waved an arm at the room behind her, which was mostly full of boxes. “You don’t have anything better to do? You moved in three weeks ago, have you unpacked anything?”

“I unpacked the kitchen stuff, obviously. And you’re here. I know how you like it when I wear this apron.”

Rukia folded her arms on the counter and rested her chin on them. “Renji. You’re still sleeping in the barracks, aren’t you?”

Renji stared deeply into his bowl of pork and cabbage. It was much more forgiving than his fiancee. “This house is really big. It gets lonely at night. I still don’t see why I had to move in first.”

“How am I supposed to marry into your family if your family doesn’t even have a house? What sort of poor excuse for a noble are you anyway?” Rukia teased him.

“The worst,” Renji agreed cheerfully.

Rukia’s smile wavered a little. “It’s not too big, is it? For just two people?”

“It’ll be perfect when you’re here, I promise. If it’s still too big, we’ll get that bunny you’ve always wanted." 

Renji expected some shouting on the topic of bunnies, but instead, Rukia was quiet. He looked up from his dumplings to see her chewing on her bottom lip pensively. "Renji? Can I ask you something?” she asked as his eyes met hers.

“Nope!” he replied. “You said you were done! You blew your wad on centerpieces and great-uncles!”

She gave him a withering stare.

“Of course you can ask me anything, dummy,” he chided her.

Rukia sat up and leaned back as far as she could without falling off her stool. “Do you wanna have kids?”

Renji blinked. “Well…” he said slowly. 

Rukia waited.

“To be honest, I’ve spent a lot of time on my figure. I’m worried you wouldn’t find me attractive anymore if I couldn’t lose the weight afterwards–”

“Oh, shut up, you are the worst!” Rukia looked around for something she could throw at him, but the best thing she could come up with was a dish towel, which he ducked easily. “I’m being serious, here!”

“I know, I know, I’m sorry,” he chuckled, not sounding very sorry. “Do you want to have kids?”

“No! No dodging! I asked you first!”

They stared at each other, eyes narrowed.

“What if we said it at the same time?” Renji suggested.

“That seems like a terrible idea, but it is fair. Let’s do it.”

“Okay, on three, then. One…”

“Two…”

“Three!”

“Yes,” said Rukia at the same time as Renji said, “I do, but I feel it puts an unfair burden on you and I know being a good leader to your squad is something you take very seriously and I won’t feel like anything is missing from– did you just say 'yes’?”

“I knew you hadn’t thought this through properly,” Rukia muttered.

He threw a piece of wadded up dough at her head. She caught it.

“You moron!” she scolded. “You’re the head of a family, now! What kind of a dick do you think I am, that I would agree to marry you with no intention of bearing you an heir!”

Renji’s face split into a lopsided grin. “First of all, if you say the phrase 'bearing me an heir’ again, I am going to be so overcome with passion that I will be unable to wait until our marital vows, and I’ll have my way with you right here and now.”

Rukia rolled her eyes. As if he gave half a shit about wedding vows. As if they hadn’t done it already once today within five minutes of her walking in the door.

“Secondly, who the hell else would I marry? I’ve already incorporated Sode no Shirayuki’s tsuba into my family crest.” He shoved up his sleeve for emphasis, as if she had somehow forgotten what it looked like, the segmented oval of her released sword’s guard, bisected by a lightning bolt. She couldn’t believe he’d gotten it tattooed on the inside of his forearm on the same day Byakuya declared him a one-man vassal family. She also couldn’t believe he wouldn’t let her get a matching one until they were actually married. Apparently Seireitei tattoo artists were very serious about not doing clan symbols without permission. At least he was finally willing to wear long sleeves again, now that it was November. 

“That’s your problem,” she informed him.

“My favorite problem,” he announced. “The branch family thing is nice, I guess, but mostly I just care about being married to you. You don’t need to feel obligated to–”

Rukia threw the dough ball back at his head. It hit him square in the forehead and bounced off. “Look, you lunkhead. I don’t know if I would be any good at being a mom, but it’s just stupidly obvious how good a dad you would be, not to mention how hot you would be in one of those baby sling things. Don’t you dare try to deny it, as you stand there in your dumb apron, making your freezer meals.”

His cheeks had gone a little pink. “All I was gonna say is that I think you would be a pretty awesome mom. You can skateboard. I can’t skateboard. You… you really want to?”

Rukia shrugged, a little defensively. “We had a pretty shitty childhood, y’know, but we all took care of each other. We did okay. We were happy. I feel like… like it would be nice to actually take care of someone. Give them food and hugs and tell them stories and all the stuff no one ever did for us. That I would like to do that with you.”

Renji was regarding her strangely.

“What?” Rukia huffed.

“I just really like you, y’know,” he said softly. 

Now Rukia was the one with pink cheeks. “Also, I just feel like I could make a really good baby,” she proclaimed. “Especially with your help. Imagine a kid with my brains and aesthetic and your height and abs.”

“You do realize we’re just as likely to get an angry shorty with my hair and your stubbornness,” Renji informed her dryly. “Not to mention a foul mouth because there’s no way we’re gonna remember to watch our language around them.”

“Sounds perfect to me, either way,” Rukia replied.

Renji grinned and continued on with his dumpling stuffing. “All right, Kuchiki. I’m game if you are.”

“I am,” Rukia confirmed. “When do you want to start?”

Renji guffawed. “You do not mess around, do you? My hands are covered in ground meat at the moment–”

“Be serious! Besides, I already cast the all-purpose protection kidou on you today and I’m very good at it, so it’ll probably last a full eight hours.”

Renji shook his head and rolled his eyes. “You be serious. Wouldn’t you rather wait until you get a new captain in place?”

Rukia stuck her lower lip out. “Uhhh, there’s something I should probably tell you.”

Renji looked up, regarding her under lowered eyelids. “Yesssss?”

Rukia made a squirmy face. “The Head-Captain talked to me the other day. He, uh, said that with all the losses overall, and the fact that there aren’t really any good candidates, he wants to keep the 13th small for the next couple of years and let me, um, growintothecaptaincy.”

Renji raised one eyebrow at her, looking very proud, but not saying anything.

“He wants to do the same with the Seventh,” Rukia quickly excused. “And he’s going to talk to Captain Hitsugaya about mentoring me, both as a captain and with my bankai. That’s the real issue, y'know, that with a bankai like that, I should really know what I’m doing before I have any business captaining a squad.”

“I hear you,” Renji agreed.

Rukia narrowed her eyes at him. “Is that what you told Captain Kyouraku when he asked you to take the Seventh? He said you turned him down.”

Renji winced.

“Because you told me,” Rukia went on loftily, “ that Souou Zabimaru was much easier to maneuver than Hihiou Zabimaru.”

“Something about how I still had a lot to learn from Captain Kuchiki,” Renji grumbled. “Besides, the Seventh is Iba’s squad. He’s not that far from bankai. I even told Kyouraku I’d help him train for it.”

“It might be awhile before you get another chance,” Rukia pointed out softly.

Renji was stuffing dumplings very aggressively now. “Your brother needs me right now, you know that, even if I wasn’t gettin’ married to the most demanding woman in Soul Society next month. I don’t care that much about making captain. I care a lot about my family.”

Byakuya’s battle with As Nodt had very nearly killed him. At the time, Captain Unohana had predicted that, even if he lived, he would never hold a sword again. He had proved her wrong, of course, trained in the Royal Realm, taken up his haori again. But he wasn’t the same. HIs power was greatly reduced, his endurance as well. He could no longer reach the advanced stages of his bankai. 

Captain Kuchiki was one of the most powerful captains in the Gotei. It would take a strong opponent indeed to press him hard enough to even notice these changes. But Byakuya knew. And his lieutenant, who had finally bested him in battle, knew, too.

Byakuya’s previous strength might still return. It might simply take time. Having an eager young vice-captain– powerful enough to pass the captain’s exam, but lacking the experience, made a convenient cover for delegating combat and other physically taxing duties. Especially now that Byakuya had acknowledged Renji as a protege of sorts, head of a Kuchiki branch family, and promised Byakuya’s own beloved sister, it appeared outwardly that it was the captain supporting his vice-captain, rather than the other way around.

Rukia smiled fondly at the vice-captain in question. “I like you a lot, too, y'know.” She paused thoughtfully. “I don’t have to be a captain, either. It is a lot. I can tell Kyouraku to find someone else.”

“Tch!” Renji huffed. “Someone’s gotta bring glory to our family name. Makes more sense for it to be you, I’m the better cook.” He finished up the last of his dumplings, and put the bowl in the sink. “Although I suppose that puts a wrinkle in that thing we were talking about a minute ago.”

Rukia sniffed. “I don’t see why. We’ll make one right away, I’ll tell the Head Captain I need a year, and then I’ll get down to business after that. You can use the baby as an excuse to stave off any further attempts at promotion. And if Brother keeps trying to overdo it, we can plunk the baby in his lap.”

“Brilliant plan,” Renji assessed. “Zero foreseeable flaws. How many of these you think you can eat with dinner? I’m gonna freeze the rest.”

“One thousand,” Rukia proclaimed.

Renji rolled his eyes as he slid a tray into the freezer. “I have no idea how I am going to keep you fed, assuming I actually manage to knock you up.”

“I believe in you,” Rukia assured him. “On both counts.” She watched him as he continued to clean up. “You’re really on board with all this? You were probably looking forward to a few years of me bending you over the kitchen table as soon as we got home, not late night feedings and dirty diapers, huh?”

Renji finished drying his hands, and he reached over the counter to tip Rukia’s chin up with one finger. “Rukia. As much as I love having rauchy sex in inappropriate places with you– and you know that I do– the thing I’ve been waiting forty-six years for is to be a family, whether that means just the two of us, or us plus however many babies you demand I put in you. I’ve had enough waiting for one afterlife, to be honest.”

“How did you come up with 46?” Rukia frowned. “Forty-six years ago, we were still back in–”

“Don’t do the math,” he implored.

“Okay,” she agreed, smiling at him.

“We’re not gonna start trying before the wedding, though, right?” Renji asked, pulling off his apron. “I’m pretty bad at math, but your brother’s not.”

“I suppose not,” Rukia agreed.

“Then we should squeeze in as much lazy daytime sex as possible while we still can!”

Rukia shrieked gleefully as he ducked around the kitchen island and pulled her off her barstool. 

This was going to work out just fine.

[mrsmess]

Faves and fails of SPN (season 10)

Favorite episodes (in chronological order):

10:2 Reichenbach - Of course I like the Cole-storyline, it’s been a long time coming, but he’s so short Sam’s taller than him sitting down! Not that I’m complaining. I’m not hating this. I feel like this rewatch became Sam’s about midway through season 8 and that still holds. Samstel in distress fends pretty well for himself. Also loving Cass, and even Hannah. And Dean is an asshole but at least he kills Lester.

10:5 Fan fiction - Well, obviously this goes on the list. Love this crap. The boys are a lot of fun. And all the girls are awesome.

10:6 Ask Jeeves - anything Bobby related, y’know? And now we know the show’s back to normal, when Sam insists ”being a monster is a choice” and Dean comes blasting through the door with the categorical excessive violence. Ah. Supernatural.

10:7 Girls, girls, girls - sexworkers hustling for souls - brilliant. And Rowena! Is she modelled after Morticia? Anyway she gets quite an introduction, instantly into her. And Crowley dislikes getting tangled w the prostitution ring. Dean’s closing speech to Cole - pretty frickin’ strong.

10:8 Hibbing 911 - Jody and Donna and Alex on the phone. That is all I care about.

10:9 The things we left behind - And now another Wayward daughter! Claire! And Cass being cute. Sam’s hairography. ”Tell me it was them or you!” Well... kind of? And they certainly had it coming.

10:12 About a boy - Dean is appropriately haunted by what happened w Charlie and it’s bleeding into his performance. He gets transformed into his tween self. I like this actor. Omg! Tween!Dean ranting and adult!Sam listening - adorable.

10:14 The executioner’s song - now that’s an intro. Dean bashing Sam’s true crime fad. I’m with ya, Dean! Why would someone w their lives be into serial killers? Cain is looking goooood. And Sam acting like everything’s gonna be okay but knowing differently.

10:15 The things they carried - kudos to the show for not abandoning the Cole storyline. Also fresh monster time, albeit not my favorite monster (it’s a little silly) but still. The possibility of failure catching up w Sam.

10:16 Paint it black - omg! Sydney from Legion! Love her. And Dean relating to her. Love that. Finally some more info on Rowena. Dean in confession. My heart!

10:17 Inside man - Bobby! Barefoot Sam! ”How’d you sleep?” ”Like a drunk baby.” A mime that is secretly a cockroach. That is the story, goshdarnit! But I hate that Sam’s not being frank w Dean about what he’s doing. That’s usually Dean’s mo. Boooh. But I like him and Cass working together. But I hate lonely, self-destructive Dean. But Bobby! But poor Dean! I’m in pain. Okay ultimately it goes on the fave list because things start moving w Crowley and because of Bobby’s jailbreak. ”Dean doesn’t know we’re doing this.” ”Well, that’s a page ripped right outta the Winchester hand book, ain’t it?” I miss him so much. And Dean and Crowley talking. And Bobby’s reaction to Metatron. Lol.

10:18 Book of the damned - ”Can I kill him now?” Oh Cass. I get it. Metatron is like that person who rubs everyone the wrong way, and for no apparent reason, but all powerful. Nightmare. Dean coming clean! Charlie! Mysterious artefact! Thin Lizzy! The brothers dreaming about the beach. Diciplined, deliberate, contained and soft-spoken Dean is adorable. ”What is your mission now, Castiel?” The Winchesters obviously. Charlie and Sam talking about the life <3 Cass finding his grace! Cass and Charlie meeting! Behind Blue Eyes!What time is it? It’s time to spin the intrigue wheel! Deal with darkness it is!

10:20 Angel heart - Claire is back. Oh Cass. Never change. Dean and Claire playing miniature golf. I’m rly annoyed thinking about the Novak-family priorities: Jimmy went like: sure I’ll be a vessel, it’s not like my family needs me. And Amelia went like: I’ll go look for my vessel-husband, Claire will be fine on her own. And then they’re together in dumbass-heaven. And Dean, Sam and Cass leaving Claire to fend for her half Dead mother. They can’t do anything quite right, huh? Still, it gets to stay on the fave list because of Claire. Poor baby.

Worst episodes (in chronological order):

10:4 Paper Moon - Gosh, I’m instantly seeing the upside of Demon!Dean: They’re gonna make this shallow guilt-tripping last the entire season, aren’t they? Watching the Lester-storyline put into a flashback-collage like that; The Winchesters? More like the two Stooges. And ”You killed your boyfriend’s best friend!” Are you being dumb on purpose? Were you asleep during the movie she left for you?

10:10 The hunter games - Kind of a fix-it episode. I’m a tad tired of these constant lines on human morality taking up time when they are kinda beyond it.

10:13 Halt and catch fire - This is pretty terrible. The ghost is in the wifi! Technology is evil!

10:21 Dark dynasty - As fascinating as the Styne family is, they’re wasted this late. Plus, y’know, the obvious, horrible ending.

10:23 Brother’s keeper - Calling a dead girl ”dressed like a whore” under demonic influence or not, is the quickest way to end up on my nope list. Honestly I felt the tide turning in Dean’s favor but nah. Yeah, Yeah, i get it, he’s losing it, but I’m back on team Sam. My god, these final speeches between the brothers are starting to feel as engaging as ping pong, as well as resemble it. ”Let’s try the same dialogue as we did last season but change places.” And it’s kind of stupid because the subject matter is continually engaging. Also I’m not clear on why Dean had to kill Sam and that’s just, not good.

Honorable mentions:

The relationship between Cass and Hannah has me weak at the knees at times. I rly like it.

Dean and Sam going by Collins and Gabriel in there’s no place like home.

Dean inadvertantly describing himself accurately in the Werther project: ”You’re looking at me like i’m some diseased, killer-puppy.” Lol.

Crowley torturing a guy w darts, and talking to the hamster.

Dishonorable mentions:

I dig Rowena but not her motivations. Or maybe it’s more along the lines of me not liking it. The only power worth having is the power to be free. Everything else just seems like a hassle.

The fact that they don’t try dismembering all monsters and burying the parts seperately- which seems to at least slow down anything- instead of playing along w silly ancient self-fulfilling prophecies ”Cain must be killed w the first blade” Have they learned nothing from Buffy?

Piero the 16th century italian artist preferring bottle blondes.

Things that makes you go hmm:

Soul survivor - Okay. So. If Sam used his own blood to cure Dean - would that count as a trial? He certainly didn’t care about blood types or sanctified blood, or maybe I missed something. Either way, it irks me. Actually, could we skip this whole guilt-trippy demon-cure schtick? What Sam did is n.o.t.h.i.n.g compared to what they’ve done before. And heaven and hell is increasingly unepic- not that I mind. And ”He says he doesn’t want to.” Who cares?? The shit you’ve put each other through for ten seasons; you’re so beyond asking each other for permission.

Summing up:

This is definitely Dean’s season, he gets to be a badass demon as well as show great restraint, my two favorite things. Unfortunately Sam’s behavior is a bit ooc again, he not only shouldn’t have but wouldn’t have kept his work a secret from Dean, he’s more of the earnest, nagging type. Plus, the execution of the season is chaotic and confusing. Probably the lowest ranking season so far.

[raccoonwritings]

A Drink Away from Honesty  (Ch. 5)

Childhood Friends AU (angst with a happy ending, be warned)

Lucas is an oversharing drunk, Eliott is both desperate and dramatic, and everyone is trying to just keep everything straight.

Or alternatively, Lucas and Eliott were childhood best friends until a storm tears them apart and brings them back together.

(Title from “Don’t Miss Me?” by Marianas Trench)

Chapter 5: You’re Little

Lucas (16) and Eliott (18)

Lundi 18:45

“What do I do?!” Lucas dramatically flops down on his bed, next to Yann. He had called Yann here on the premise of needing best friend support and this time is was absolutely necessary.

“You’re so dramatic,” Yann says, not even bothering to look up from his phone. Lucas sits up instantly, ready to rumble.

“I am not dramatic!” He attempts to convince Yann – and himself. He watches Yann get up off the bed and look at him directly in the eyes.

“What do I doooooooo?!” Yann mimics Lucas from moments ago as he drops himself on the bed with force.

Lucas pouts and crosses his arms. “You’re mean”

“Here comes the pout,” Yann grins. He pouts even more.

“I’m being serious! I called you here for best friend support and you’re making fun of me! I need help!” Lucas kicks his feet a little.

“Am I even your best friend?” Yann questions seriously, forcing Lucas to sit up.

“Of course you are! Why would you even question that?”

“Well, apparently, your former best friend is walking around telling the whole school that you’re his best friend. A bit rude if you ask me.”

Lucas groans so loud that the floor vibrates. Eliott is really going the mile to make his life hell and to think he’s only been here for a couple of days.

“You’re my best friend, Yann. Eliott is just dramatic.”

“That makes two of you.” Yann receives a glare for that. “Oh, come on. You’re dramatic, he’s dramatic, you’d make a perfect match!” Lucas’ back goes stiff. He doesn’t remember how much of the story he told Yann and he doesn’t have the emotional stability today to explain it again or to even fill in the missing parts.

“If you’re not going to give me best friend support, I’ll go ask Mika for help,” Lucas gets up off the bed and waits for the reaction he knows is coming.

“Okay, okay! I’ll help you. Explain the situation.”

“So, at the party on Friday, when Chloe and I went to the bathroom,” Lucas feels himself shutter at the thought. “We were making out against the door, when it opened, and there he was behind the door. I thought it was just a fluke, a one-off thing, but then he showed up at school today. I thought he was following me or something, but he says he goes here now. He interrupted me and Chloe again and he managed to convince her that we already made plans for the both of us when Chloe wanted to go on a date with me. She left, but I think he is actually expecting me to hangout with him and I don’t know what to do.” Lucas rushes through his story, hoping that Yann caught at least half of it. Explaining it stresses him out.

“Well, do you want to hang out with him?” Yann ponders. Lucas doesn’t answer quick enough, apparently. “Wait, do you actually want to?”

“I don’t know! It pisses me off the way he acts like nothing happened. He hasn’t acknowledged anything. He aggravates me, acting all smooth and–” He hears Yann snort.

“Acting all smooth,” Yann laughs. His best friend is really not giving him the support he wants right now. “You still have a thing for him, don’t you?”

Nope, nope, nope. Lucas wants out of this conversation. He’s not ready to deal with that yet. “No, it just bothers me how he thinks he can walk in here and make do like nothing happened.”

“He’s really seeming to get under your skin, especially for all two times you’ve talked to him. Are you sure you don’t still have feelings for him?” Yann sees right through him, but he isn’t ready to face what he’s pushed deep down for over a year now. He also really wishes he wouldn’t get honest drunk.

“You’re not giving me an answer to my problem!” Lucas whines. “What do I do about seeing him?”

Yann doesn’t speak for a moment and Lucas can see the wheels turning in his head. “You should do it.” Excuse, him? Did Lucas hear that right?

“What?” Lucas asks incredulously. Yann better have a good explanation for this.

“Well, maybe he wants to apologize.” Yeah, no. That definitely wasn’t it. “Maybe he misses you and just wants to hang out again.” Hm, maybe. “It could also give you an opportunity to give him hell for how much he hurt you.” Oh, well, that’s an idea.

“I don’t know if I have the capability to get that angry directly to his face.” Lucas pictures him and holds back his natural reflex to smile at the thought of the bushy haired, lanky boy. He really doesn’t think he could get pissed at him in his presence.

“Trust me, you could.” Yann confirms. “You can be quite the angry little person.”

“Little?!” Lucas angry pouts. “I am not little!”

Yann takes a handful of popcorn from the near empty bowl on the bed. “You’re little.”

“I don’t like you.”

“False. Categorically untrue. If you can remember back five minutes ago, you called me your best friend.” Lucas takes as much popcorn he can gather in his hand and throws it at him.

“You’re the worst.”

“No, I think that title goes to Eliott.”

Now, that, was something that Lucas could agree with

Mercredi 15:14

Lucas notices him as soon as he exits the school, leaning up against the wall of the courtyard with his eyes on his phone. He contemplates if he could sneak out of the courtyard without Eliott catching him, but he thinks too long because Eliott snaps his head up. Lucas swallows nervously as Eliott begins to approach him. His long legs carry him over to Lucas faster than he would have liked, considering all the thoughts racing in his head.

“Hi!” Eliott says through a wide smile. Lucas doesn’t answer but returns a timid half-smile.

“Oh, are you not going to speak to me? If we’re going to play this game, you know you’re going to win because I can’t shut up around you.” Lucas raises an eyebrow. “You know it’s true. I just can’t help myself around you,” Eliott tries to meet his gaze, but Lucas doesn’t let up. Not until Eliott runs a hand through his hair, which makes Lucas’ return the stare. “Got you to look,” Eliott smiles playfully. Lucas’ heart is going to have a hard time today, he can feel it. “Ready to go?”

No, Lucas is absolutely not ready to go, he’s not ready to sit alone with Eliott and deal with the aftermath of what has happened. It seems like he doesn’t have a choice though, because soon enough Eliott has a grip on his jacket sleeve and is pulling him towards the bus stop. He can feel himself walking along, but his mind has too much on it to actively focus on his physical movements.

He only gets out of his head when he realizes he’s sitting next to Eliott on the bus. Eliott is animatedly telling him something he doesn’t bother to try and listen to. All he can do is look at him, really look at him. He notices how his hair is longer, it’s curling a little more at the ends than it was back over a year ago. His eyes are still as beautiful as Lucas remembers, same as his smile. He lets himself indulge in the thoughts before Eliott picks up on his staring.

“Like what you see?” Eliott raises an eyebrow. Fuck him, he knows Lucas likes what he sees. He always has. He just decides to ignore him.

“Man, you’re actually not going to talk to me, huh?” Eliott looks concerned and attempts to stare into Lucas’ eyes. After a few minutes of silence, Eliott fidgets and tries again. “Lulu, what’s wrong?”

Lucas directs his attention out the window of the bus, trying his hardest to not get upset. It amazes him that Eliott has no clue how much he broke his heart. Actually, it doesn’t. Lucas could’ve, would’ve given him the world, his entire world, if Eliott had just stayed. It hurts too much to think that he meant so little to Eliott when Eliott told him the opposite. He wants to cry and realizes that coming with Eliott was a bad idea. He knew in his mind this was how today was going to go, but his heart can’t stay away. There’s some small part of him naïve enough to believe that Eliott still cares about him after all this time, but in reality, he’s just a thing Eliott can play with. It makes him woozy that he trusted him with his entire life a little over a year ago and now he can barely stand to be in his vicinity. Maybe he was too naïve back then.

Eliott reaches for his hand, causing Lucas to startle. He jumps up, deciding that he needs to get out of here right now. He doesn’t even catch Eliott’s gaze as he practically runs towards the front of the bus. Luckily, the bus stops and the doors fly open, allowing Lucas a means to exit. He doesn’t know what stop this is, but he doesn’t care. He just wants to be away from him. Unfortunately for him, his small frame allows Eliott to catch him before his feet can carry him far. “I’m not letting you go that easy.”

Lucas turns around, placing his hands against Eliott’s chest and looking into his eyes. “Why? It was easy to let me go last year. What’s so different now?”

He watches Eliott’s face drop. His hands feel Eliott’s heartbeat speed up. “Lucas, please let me explain.”

“You don’t get to. You shoving your tongue down another guy’s throat after telling me you wanted to be mine was your explanation.” The memory hurts, even after pushing it so deep down. He feels his eyes begin to itch, he feels the beginnings of tears. Eliott’s arms tighten around his waist.

“You saw that?” Eliott’s face falters. Lucas can see the fear.

“I saw everything, Eliott. Tell me, was it worth it? Did it feel good, fucking me in the morning and hooking up with someone else 12 hours later? Was I just not good enough for you? To inexperienced? Not attractive enough? Not worth it? Did I just not matter to you?” Lucas is angry and in tears and he just needs to be far away from here. He’s forgotten that they’re in the middle of the sidewalk, but he just can’t bring himself to care. He’s done talking about this, he wants to forget, to leave it behind and move on. He takes the momentary lapse in Eliott’s thoughts as an opportunity to wiggle free from his grasp.

“No, Lucas! Wait, please!”  Eliott’s voice is desperate as his hand catches Lucas’ wrist.

“What do you want?! Can’t you see that I don’t want to talk to you?” Lucas pulls his hand away as a tear falls down his cheek. Eliott must’ve notice him crying because he let Lucas’s wrist go and stands there motionless, eyes watching the floor.

Lucas runs. He runs until he knows Eliott isn’t behind him. He runs until he’s out of breath. He runs until he can feel the cool wind grazing the tear tracks on his cheeks. He stops running, not wanting to keep going due do the fact he has no idea where he is. He looks around trying to determine a location and he can feel the tears stinging the back of his eyes. He needs to stop crying, he can do that when he gets home. He has a bedroom and a pile of blankets he can crawl under. He can ignore everything until tomorrow. He just has to get home first.

It takess him several hours to get home. He opts to walk the streets until well past dark, to let the cool weather sweep his tears away, to let the cool wind take all his problems away. It works well enough, until he gets to the apartment and feels his phone buzz.

From: Eliott

Since I met you, you’re the only thing that mattered

 Lucas fights tears and the urge to throw his phone to the ground. How could he blatantly lie like that? Eliott didn’t give a shit about him. The thoughts in his head are racing until a cab pulling up on the curb behind him pulls him out of his anger.

“Salut, Lucas!”

Manon’s back.

 Lucas (13) and Eliott (15)

Vendredi 20:20

Eliott’s dragged him to an upper school party and Lucas can’t discern how he feels. On the one hand, he’s glad that Eliott wanted to bring him, but he’s not enjoying the way that the girls are eyeing his best friend. He hates it, in fact. He doesn’t exactly know why, but the way all the girls at the party are staring, like they’d want him to push them against a wall, with his lips sucking at their necks. And no, he’s not making this up or catastrophizing, he literally heard one of the girls he passed by talking about how she wouldn’t mind being between his legs. He really doesn’t like girls that much, or at all to be honest.

He follows Eliott towards a group of boys, all much taller than he, and with a bit more muscle too. Lucas feels scrawny compared to them. Eliott introduces him as his best friend, and it makes his heart flutter, despite not knowing why. It didn’t make sense, because they always introduced the other as their best friend to new people. He just really likes being Eliott’s best friend.

Half an hour and two beers later, Lucas is feeling good. He’s not flat on his face drunk, but he has a nice buzz going. Eliott’s arm is wrapped around his waist, keeping him steady and if he pretends to be a bit more drunk so he can lean a little more into his best friend’s shoulder, he wouldn’t tell anyone. He wants to stay like this for as long as possible, because he’s warm and tipsy, and his best friend’s grip on his waist is slowly getting tighter with every second.

His happy bubble burst just a bit when someone suggests they play truth or dare. Knowing Eliott’s love for the game, Lucas wasn’t surprised when his friend pulled him down into the circle. Lucas feels a bit uneasy, considering he’s younger than everyone here and he doesn’t know anyone except for Eliott and his friends, who he’s only met in passing once. An hour ago.

Lucas watches as girls and boys go off in pairs for the dares to kiss or make out in the corner. He watches one girl give a lap dance to another guy, despite having a boyfriend. It wasn’t that entertaining for him, at all. He didn’t really want to kiss girls or be on the receiving or giving end of a dare, and luckily Eliott spoke up for him when someone tries to get him to kiss a girl named Elena, who he had noticed was looking at him funny the entire night. Lucas was glad that Eliott saved him from that turmoil, but then the next person suggested that because Lucas wasn’t going to do it, that Eliott should.

“If the pip squeak isn’t going to kiss her, then you have to, Eliott. It’s the rules,” a guy with shaggy blonde hair addresses Eliott.

“Yeah and you have to go in the closet with her. Seven minutes in heaven, I dare you,” another guys hollers.

The yelling and taunting Eliott was receiving didn’t stop until he accepted, agreeing and standing up to offer the girl his hand. Lucas stares as his best friend walks the girl out of the room, towards the closet door by the entrance to the house. Eliott disappears inside, shutting the door behind the two of them.

The next seven minutes are the longest of Lucas’ thirteen years on this planet. He just wants Eliott to come out and sit next to him again, and he gets his wish, but not without a price. The seven minutes are up and the entire circle is belting at them to exit the closet, which they do, and Lucas can’t help but notice two large marks on the side the girls neck. Those weren’t there before. He suddenly feels stone cold sober. He wants another beer and to be alone and away from all of the people hooting and cheering his best friend while the girl he went into the closet with blushes and begins excitedly talking to her friends.

Eliott returns to his spot next to Lucas and the game continues, but Lucas couldn’t care less. He checks out because all he can think of are his best friend’s lips sucking on that girl’s neck. How he hates that he went in there with her. How he wishes that he was the one with the marks on his collarbone.

That’s the thought that stops him in his tracks. He wants Eliott to give him hickeys? He wants to kiss Eliott? His mind races and he can’t help but take a quick glance at Eliott’s lips and think about how soft they must feel. Eliott’s hair is really soft, what must it be like to run a hand through while kissing him? He’s never kissed anyone before, but it doesn’t seem so daunting if he were to do it with Eliott. Best friends can kiss best friends and it wouldn’t be weird, right? No, it’s them. They’ve always been touchy-feely, so it wouldn’t be weird if they kissed.

Lucas crashes back down to reality when an older boy dares him to kiss another girl and he panics. Once again, Eliott steps in to take the heat for him, but he doesn’t want to see him kiss someone else. Not again. He’s still reeling from Eliott kissing the last girl and from the fact that he thinks he wants to kiss Eliott. The circle doesn’t let Eliott take the fall for Lucas this time though.

“Sorry dude, he has to kiss her, you can’t save him more than once,” a ginger haired boy tells Eliott, who fires back immediately.

“Leave the kid alone, he didn’t even want to come tonight and I made him. Just let him be.” Eliott’s arm wraps around his shoulder, protecting him. “Let me take his place.”

“Sorry, he’s gotta kiss her or someone, at least.”

Another person in the circle pipes up, “Why don’t you just kiss him if you don’t want him kissing anyone else?” This question gets lots of support and Lucas is reeling. He has to kiss Eliott? In front of all these people? His stomach starts to knot and he looks to his best friend who won’t make eye contact with him. Lucas wants to shake him, wants him to just say okay and get it over with, but he does something completely different instead.

“Alright, Lucas can kiss her,” Eliott’s voice cuts through his heart like daggers. Lucas feels himself slouch, but not enough to grasp any attention from the applause Eliott’s sentence gets. All eyes are on him and he wants to vomit. He doesn’t have enough time to process anything before he reluctantly gets up and walks over to her, taking her hand to pull her up. He tries to remember how the other guys were kissing girls a little while ago. He puts a hand at the back of her neck and slowly leans in, with what feels like rocks in his stomach.

It’s lack luster and doesn’t feel like anything. Her lips are fruity and glossy and he doesn’t enjoy it much. His first kiss is wasted on a girl he doesn’t like at a party he didn’t want to be at, because his best friend dragged him there and didn’t want to kiss him. He pulls away from him and smiles half heartedly to her before returning to his spot in the circle next to Eliott, whose eyes are on him the entire time. He refuses to look at his best friend, who he notices is concerned because of how far Lucas sits from him.

He decides he doesn’t like parties. Not at all. He also decides he needs another drink and to get out of this room before he starts to tear up. He gets up when all the attention is focused on another pair and heads for the kitchen, the fridge to get exact. All he can think about is that Eliott didn’t want to kiss him. He was so disgusted by the idea that he threw Lucas into the trenches to snog someone he didn’t like, he didn’t even know. His heart aches and he questions why it hurts so much that Eliott didn’t want to kiss him. He assumes it’s because his friend is disgusted by the prospect of locking lips.

Lucas pulls the fridge door open with force and grabs another beer. Popping the top off, he takes a big swig, causing him to cough because it goes down the wrong pipe. Once he’s recovered, he goes to chug the rest, because he doesn’t want to feel anymore, when Eliott pulls the half empty bottle from his hands. “Slow down there, Lucas. What’s going on, you never chug like that?” Eliott tilts his head down to catch Lucas’ eyes. He needs more alcohol in order to deal with this.

“Can I please have it back?” Lucas pleads, reaching up for the bottle, only to have Eliott finish the rest in one gulp. Lucas pouts. “Why did you do that? That was my beer.”

“Why do you need more when you’ve already had quite the handful tonight?” Eliott ponders.

“Just wanted more,” Lucas says softly, not wanting to tell him the real reason why.

“Lulu, tell me what’s bothering you, because something is. I know you.” That was something Lucas didn’t need to be reminded off.

The alcohol running through his system gave him some courage. “Was the idea of kissing me really that bad? Do I disgust you?” He looks up with tears beginning to form in his eyes. He sees Eliott’s face immediately soften and his hand comes up to stroke Lucas cheek with his thumb.

“Lulu, of course you don’t disgust me,” Eliott says softly in his ear. “Is that what this is about? The beer chugging? Is this because you’re upset I didn’t kiss you?” Eliott’s thumb rubs circles on his cheek while he shows Lucas a gentle, toothy smile.

“No, no, not that it’s just,” Lucas begins to get nervous, “you just threw me in to kiss some girl because someone dared you to kiss me. I don’t know, I guess I just thought that the idea bothered you or that you were disgusted by the thought of kissing me.” Lucas focuses his attention on his hands, which are nervously moving against one another. He refuses to look up, but the hand stroking his cheek moves under his chin to lift his head up. His eyes meet Eliott’s, which are filled with nothing but fondness and love.

“I didn’t know if you’d want to kiss me, that’s why I didn’t. I didn’t want to put you on the spot in the middle of a group of people you didn’t know.”

Lucas half laughs. “That’s what you did, though! You let them dare me to kiss someone else.” He begins talking rapidly. “Of course I wouldn’t want to have been put on the spot, but I would’ve rather kissed you than someone else, especially over someone I don’t know. I didn’t even know her and that was my first kiss and I guess I always thought it would’ve been more romantic and not in the middle of a truth or dare game, but you let it happen! You let me waste my first kiss on some girl I didn’t like or even know,” he’s starting to work himself up, “all because you didn’t know if I’d want to kiss you. I’d rather have kissed you than her Eliott and yo-” Lucas’ bordering-on-emotional rant was cut off by something soft against his mouth. Eliott was pressing his lips against Lucas’ and it was far more enjoyable than the one he shared with whatever her name was earlier that night. Lucas startles, but immediately starts to kiss and dares to knot his hand in the hair at the back of Eliott’s neck. Eliott wraps his arms around Lucas’ waist, like when he was steadying Lucas an hour or two ago. He doesn’t know how long they were kissing when Eliott pulls back, panting, lips puffy and red and plush. Lucas smiles at him, heart beating fast and hugs him forcefully.

Eliott whispers in his ear, “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize your first kiss meant so much to you.”

“It’s okay.”

“If you want, we can pretend I was your first kiss.”

And that, to Lucas, sounds so much better than reality.