Tumgik
#but also its kind of nice to be seen and understood so they semi make the effort
Note
🌈 ― aesthetically pleasing blog
⭐️ ― convincing portrayal of a canon character
💻 ― excellent writing
🌼 ― creative headcanons
🎙️ ― great to talk to
📚 ― nice threads to read
🎀 ― all-around kind person
🥇 ― well-developed oc
😍 ― admiring from afar
📌 ― a staple on the dash
🏆 ― 10/10 blog, would recommend
Yeah fuck you, ilu bitch (:<
🐝  *  ―  𝑺𝑯𝑶𝑼𝑻-𝑶𝑼𝑻𝑺 𝑶𝑭 𝑨𝑾𝑬𝑺𝑶𝑴𝑬𝑵𝑬𝑺𝑺.
🏆 ― 10/10 blog, would recommend
── For this I've decided to talk a little about @bells-of-black-sunday because he deserves it and also because his blog is just generally an all around treat that excels in multiple areas!
🌈 ― aesthetically pleasing blog
── While they've recently gone dash-only, their carrd (or one of three - he's working on more because he's insane) is wonderfully put together, and so is his pinned post!
⭐️ ― convincing portrayal of a canon character
── Spük has a really amazing way of writing Tarhos and Danny in ways that both treat them as humans but also does not dance around the atrocities both of these characters have done. Both of these characters are expanded upon in a realistic way that fits both of their personalities. It also ties together loose strings for their lore - particularly in regards to Danny's lack of mother and Tarhos' complicated relationship with violence.
💻 ― excellent writing
── This goes without saying, if you're on my blog you've seen Spük's writing at least a few times a week LOL - his writing is really inspirational to me and is a big part of the reason I write so much. He has a very blunt way of writing which I appreciate, but there's a good bit of prose sprinkled throughout that really makes it enjoyable and easily understood for me and my dyslexic ass.
🌼 ― creative headcanons
── THISSSSS!!! Spük and I talk so much about their muses and headcanons about their lore and each one is like a gourmet meal served on a silver platter for me. This semi - relates to the point I made above about how he can tie together loose lore really well, Danny's lack of mother turning into abandonment issues and Tarhos' violence being a coping mechanism because its the only constant in his life? MAN - GOOOOOD fucking food all around. Don't even get me started on Karthus - LJFDGNFK HE'S SO ... SO ... Look I just love the entire idea of corruption through religion -- also modern verse being this bored asf British Ghost who smokes weed is the funniest shit to me idc.
🎙️ ― great to talk to/🎀 ― all-around kind person
── We legit talk from morning to night about everything, not only as a writer but as a person Spük has a wonderful personality. He's very kind and genuinely one of the most understanding, sweet people I've been lucky to meet. He's always eager to help flesh out other people's muses and plot too! I definitely recommend speaking to him ooc - he's just such a sweetie pie.
📚 ― nice threads to read
── Spük puts so much effort into each piece of writing he does, and it really shines through in how his long - form threads read and connect together. I won't lie and say that I don't ocassionally re-read our threads and kick my feet like a schoolgirl but thats besides the point. Each interaction on his blog is thought out beautifully and carefully, and they genuinely have some wild twists and turns throughout.
🥇 ― well-developed oc
── He has quite a few OCs on his blog, but Aita and Yijun are so wildly creative to me and they're both such deep, yet funny, characters. Aita's story is such a relatable tale for many of us, and I feel connected to him in how he feels in relation to his family and life's pressures. He just feels like a very realistic train-crash of emotions that have gathered up over time and I genuinely hope he can heal. Yijun on the other hand is a bitch and I also love them - the idea of turning a demon into a snake oil salesman that uses TikTok and social media as a way to form a pseudo cult is so fucking SMART and such an innovative way to explore demonic intentions. Plus he's just so ... mean? It's comical how bitchy he is - plus his relationship with Abel!!! AAAA!
😍 ― admiring from afar
── Not me peepin his blog daily for any missed updates -
📌 ― a staple on the dash
── Probably embarrassing to say but Spük is one of the first people I look for on my dash, they're such a huge part of it and I'm so invested in everything they make that I can't really imagine it without them on it. At that rate I'll just delete - NJKDHKJG this is a joke obviously but I really cannot picture the dash without him on it. He's so sweet, caring, has great writing and amazing art - how could I NOT want to see him popping up on my homepage everday? His content is a BUFFET.
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redrobin-detective · 3 years
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Danny Phantom AU where Vlad isn’t a half ghost but some vampire mix. Maybe he was out hunting ghosts with Jack and Maddie late one night and he got bitten by a vampire. He was forced to drop out of school due to his affliction and became incredibly bitter when Jack and Maddie left him behind and got married. While not as obsessive as a ghost, Vlad is incredibly vindictive and petty. He hunts at night, sleeps in the day (in a bed, thank you, its not the 18th century) and plots his revenge.
Imagine his surprise when he hosts the reunion and finds his rivals have accidentally made their son into a human/ghost hybrid. Vlad has some knowledge of ghosts but overall doesn’t know how they operate. Thus Danny and Vlad’s entire relationship is the kinship of being weird semi-supernatural beings trying to have human lives while also totally misunderstanding the other.
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fandom-monium · 3 years
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I JUST READ KITCHEN CATASTROPHES OMG ITS SOOO CUTE UGH MY HEART SO SOFT CAN YOU PLSSS DO A PART 2? THANK YOU KEEP DOING WHAT YOU DO
AN: thank you, anon! i dont plan to make a sequel to KC. But if i did:
For Valentine’s Day
Summary: In which you throw a wrench in Spencer’s plans: you don’t like Valentine’s Day. “If it’s with you, I guess it’s not so bad.”
WC: 2.9k (whoops)
Tags/Warnings: Spencer Reid x GN!Reader, fluff, cussing, semi anti-valentines day, Spencer tears up but dont worry were there to fix that, established relationships (blegh), Garvez if you squint, post-For the Holidays
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Fuck cooking, Spencer thinks one day.
It's an irrational thought. The kind that strikes through his mind in a flash of irritation like a scrape of the knee as he is perusing the internet. Yes, he is using a computer willingly. He has to because he's desperate.
Cooking is stupid. Who really needs it, right?
He needs it. God, he needs it so bad.
His need to learn cooking wasn't as incessant until recently. Until you came along.
Spencer is a meticulous person and a romantic if you'd ever met one. Makes sense considering how he grew up, reading the classics and all that. He's read all the gooey literary shit old people write and while he never understood those meanings it all dawned on him one day. Quotes written like 'the stars in their eyes' and 'sunshine glowing off them like a halo', suddenly makes sense once he meets you. Or at least, after coming to know you, months into your newfound friendship.
It's because of this he plans accordingly the weeks leading up to Valentine's day! Because again he's meticulous and a romantic and a genius so he plans every step and makes a back up plan in case A, B, and C fall through.
Is he going overboard? 
… Nah. No way. Not when it comes to you.
But fuck with a capital F, man.
It's your third date. Or what is supposed to be your third date if you would just stop being you for a second.
Then again, he loves you a lot and he wouldn't love you if you weren't, well, you.
Although—pardon his french—what the fuck. 
Spencer knows he needs to learn to cook. You've tried plenty of times to teach him and he loves learning and he especially loves it when you are the teacher (wait, does he have a teacher/student fantasy? Maybe. That’s something he'll look into later. Preferably with you). 
Unfortunately, he's terrible at it.
He's made progress and he knows it's true because you said so but the miniscule progress he's made is. Not. Enough. And it's all your fault! Because he gets so distracted by you during your lessons, like when you put your hands over his to show him proper slicing techniques—holy fuck, he wanted to combust right there—or just watching your deft hands at work, lips and brow scrunched in concentration in that adorable way. And you smell like cooking oil or whatever you're making and you're hot.
He's so into you it physically hurts. Ugh. How is he so lucky? 
You're also the first person he's been this into since Maeve. And everyone knows how well that turned out.
So he tries to dial it down for Valentine’s Day. Morgan told him once he tends to throw himself into everything he does, including love. And when you two got together, he promised the universe he will not fuck this up. He ends up combining Morgan’s advice with Luke’s, trying to be casual like Luke says because apparently you're just as into him as he is of you. 
The thought makes him grin uncontrollably. Luke says it makes him look like a clown but a lovesick clown. A lovefool, Luke hehs.
Spencer doesn’t get the joke, but it does nothing to deter him.
As Luke advised, Spencer does “not” make a dozen back up plans and does “not" plan weeks in advance. Because that wouldn't be casual, would it?
But now the day’s come and as Valentine’s Day turns to Valentine’s Night, Spencer wants to pull his hair, rub his frustratedly stinging eyes but he can't because he's in the middle of work, in the middle of the bullpen, in the middle of his desk and he refuses to be that guy. Not again.
Why does he feel like sobbing? Like a loser? 
Because you don't like Valentine’s Day. No, you abhor it.
It happens in the middle of the work day. It's like he tried to open a door only for a bucket of ice water to be dumped on him and now he looks like a drowned rat. He definitely feels like one.
You're talking with Garcia about her Valentine’s Day plans as you multitask, switching between putting together packets and stacking them aside. Then taking them under the hole-puncher and stapling them together because the BAU isn't all kicking down doors and catching freaks. 
It makes sense that you’re chatting with Garcia during your break. The two of you have become two peas in a pod after you came out of your shell. Now you're inseparable. Only you make Garcia leave her batcave as much as she does now.
Out of sight, he catches tidbits of your conversation when he hears distinctively: Fuck Valentine’s Day.
Okay, you didn't say that verbatim but you might as well have, grimacing as you three hole-punch a packet and his heart. Then a nail on his coffin only it’s with a stapler. 
Thump. Chick.
Spencer winces; there goes your his Valentine’s Day plans. 
It shouldn't sting as much as it does. You've been dating for over a month and Valentine’s Day is definitely not his favorite holiday either. It's not even top 3. And as you rant he can’t help but silently nod in agreement, all the facts straight: yes, it's an eyesore. Yes, it's a capitalistic holiday. Yes, people should do nice things for their significant others no matter the time and not because it's expected on a specific day. Yes, it doesn't compare to Halloween—
The thing is, you two aren't that “couple-y”, at least in a traditional sense. Not like Will and JJ who got a babysitter so they could go out or like Luke and Garcia as they plan to go to a special Valentine’s Day event she wants to check out (she vehemently denies anything going on between them but he doesn't need to be a genius to see the affection they have for one another. Just kiss already, damn).
So yeah, Spencer hoped to spend the romantic holiday with you. For once, he'd have Valentine’s Day plans, aside from exchanging cards with the team and his mother.
But apparently you hate Valentine’s Day! So there goes plan A, B, C, and D!
Spencer feels the tears spring at the corner of his eyes. He sniffs as subtly as he can, raising an open case file to his face. Of all the plans he hadn't thought through this was not one of them. IQ 187, his ass.
He should've known. Or at least ask your thoughts on Valentine’s Day. That was inconsiderate on his part. He blinks back tears, withdrawing into himself despite his hurt because he is a lovefool and only for you. He just wants to impress you, make you happy even if that means canceling your first Valentine’s Day together.
Now if you'll excuse him, he has to call off a few reservations and make some returns. Several actually.
Can you return a dozen donuts in the shape of hearts?
… Yeah, he better ask Emily for the rest of the day off.
"Hey Newb, have you seen Spencer? I haven't seen him since his break," You ask, resting your chin in your hand as you squint at another form. Your eyes are beginning to tire. 
Spencer asked you several times over the course of the last week, checking to see if you were free today. You are, so you planned to hang with him after work, but he hasn't returned from his break and he wasn't answering your calls or texts. Not unusual but still odd for your boyfriend (you still can’t believe you get to say that).
Luke sighs, his smooth voice reaching over your shared divider, "You know at some point I'm just not going to respond. You guys can’t call me Newbie forever."
"Keep telling yourself that," You snort without looking up.
Another sigh and you smirk: you win.
"For your information," Luke grumbles, words punctuated with sass, "Doc went home."
You pause. "Home?" He didn't tell you.
"Yeah, probably to get ready for your date."
"Our date?" You frown and stand up, leaning over the divider to see if Luke’s fucking with you.
He isn't. Luke shrugs, humming wistfully as he rests his cheek in his hand, "You should've seen how excited he was, being it your first Valentine's Day and all. I told him to chill out because you'll love whatever it is no matter what but I'm sure he ignored that and planned something spectacular for you guys." Sitting back, he twirls around in his chair.
You grimace, recalling your earlier conversation with Garcia. 
Shit.
"Meanwhile, I have to spend Galentine's Day with Garcia because all the ladies of the BAU are taken and I have nothing better to do—" Luke comes to a full 720, catching the tail end of your coat as you whip it on and make for the door. "—um, excuse you?"
"If Emily asks, I had an emergency!" You manage to call back, throwing open the glass door.
"Okay?"
"Thanks, Newb!"
As the elevator door dings shut with you inside, leg jumping because you have a sneaking suspicion you fucked up, Luke slouches in his chair and grumbles.
He's not a newb. Or a newbie.
You rush over to Spencer's, catching your breath as you stumble to his front door. There's shuffling from inside, the faint sound of clanking and crashing and your heart swells because this is the man you’ve fallen for, the first one you've ever felt this way for. Here he is, being all considerate and romantic. And here you are, fucking it up when your relationship’s barely even started.
God, you're an asshole, you berate yourself as you turn the doorknob and push open the door. You're an asshole you're an asshole you’re an asshole—
Then your eyes widen and your jaw goes slack. 
Immediately, you slap a hand over your mouth and nose as your favorite scented candles hit you like someone shoved a bouquet in your face. The description isn't too far off considering there's a lovely bouquet of your favorite flowers still in its wrapping, haphazardly set next to a dozen donuts on the coffee table like no one's business. Its petals are strewn across the floor, a few in tiny piles like they were hastily swept to the side. Red and pink and dark green fill your vision.
Who gutted Cupid and tossed his organs around, holy fu-
"(Your name)?"
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Startled, you crane your head to find Spencer, beautiful hair askew and his tie hanging loosely around his neck. His sleeves are pushed up to his elbows as he clutches flowers to his chest. In his other hand, he grips the colored strings of several shiny red and pink balloons in the shape of hearts and—fuck—your heart might actually float up from your chest and into your eyes.
This is your man. Your partner. Your boyfriend.
Your boyfriend panics, fumbling for a second before stuffing the balloons and trimmed flowers back into the room behind him and slamming the door shut. He turns back to you, eyes wide.
"What-what are you doing here?" Spencer stammers, wringing his hands together.
You blink at him, dumbly holding up your phone. "You-uh-you left early and didn't return my calls."
"I'm sorry. I think I left my phone at work," Probably because he left in such a rush, Spencer groans, looking anywhere but you. The petals scattered over his floor are quite pretty in this light. "And I was a bit busy."
"I'm sure you were," You gawk openly at the strings of fairy lights hung around his living room. It's a clash of aesthetics. Spencer always rocked dark academia, but despite how ugly the combination of red and pink decorations with his nature green walls and dark wood is, it leaves his apartment a little brighter, a little cozier, and you love it.
You love everything about this.
But as you take in the ugly beauty of it all, Spencer fidgets at the doorway, mistaking your awe as shock and disgust. Wiping sweaty palms on his trousers, his eyes dart around, trying to focus on something, but every place he lays his eyes on makes him cringe. He catches all the things he couldn't clean up or put away in time. No doubt you do too. All the leftover flower petals, the donuts he can’t return, candles that haven’t blown out because he has the lungs of an 8-year old asthmatic. 
Spencer can't imagine how appalled you are.
And the longer your silence stretches on, the more nervous he gets so he blurts out, "I'm so sorry, (Your Name)!"
Your brow shoots up as he begins to ramble.
"You must hate this. I'll put everything away."
"You really don't have to—" You stop him, and your heart nearly crumbles as Spencer's does when he finally meets your worried gaze. 
His eyes gleam with unshed tears. He swallows, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have—"
"Doc—"
"At least not without asking you—"
"Doctor—"
"I understand if you want to break up—" His voice cracks, as if the idea itself will destroy him (it definitely will). 
"Spencer—" His voice, wobbly and dripping with unnecessary guilt, draws you to him.
"But I want you to know that I—"
With an exasperated sigh, you grab his hand as yours finds the nape of his neck, pulling him into a soft kiss. 
For a second, Spencer doesn't respond because who kisses the person they're about to break up with? Strange, really. But then he kisses you back. His hands remain frozen, unsure of where he stands, but he tilts his head to deepen the kiss. He figures this is a new social cue he has yet to learn. And if this is the last time you kiss him, he'll treasure every second of it, take whatever you'll give him because again he's a lovefool for you. 
And when you pull back, he's too dazed he nearly misses the look you give him. Suddenly, he can’t breathe.
You look at him like he hung the stars instead of cheap fairy lights around his apartment. 
Spencer’s confused. "I-I... Wha—"
"I'm not breaking up with you," You chuckle, and you nearly burst out laughing as genuine puzzlement takes over his face. You tug him behind you, plopping yourselves on his couch. You smile, appreciating the way he organized the cushions and throw-pillows; there's now space for two people to lay down.
You take a breath. "You wanna know why I don't like Valentine’s Day?"
Spencer slouches, though his body is angled towards you so you suppose that's good. He sighs, "Because it's a capitalistic holiday that reinforces the idea of doing the bare minimum…"
He begins listing your reasons, and your eyes soften. Of course he listened and remembered even if you mentioned it offhandedly.
You nod once he finishes. "Yes but before that—and I can't believe I'm telling you this—back when I was a little kid, I didn’t get any Valentines."
Spencer's brow furrows at the newfound information. You continue, "I'd get some from my friends and stuff but that's not what Valentine's Day is about. At least not when you're a kid. When you’re a dumb kid, it’s about couples and romantic shit, and I didn't really have any of that growing up." You purse your lips and glance away, face flushed with embarrassment. It's really not that big a deal, but putting it into words makes the idea seem more intimate and personal.
It takes a moment for your words to sink in as Spencer can't believe his ears. How could you not have been showered with love and affection and presents on Valentines Day? It's like water doesn't make things wet or fire doesn't produce heat; it just doesn't make sense. Because you deserve that much and more.
"So every Valentine's Day, I lowered my expectations and eventually I stopped caring. I'd tell myself those things and I started to believe them," You bite your lip, eyes crinkling as you give Spencer a sheepish smile. "But now I have you."
At that, Spencer returns your smile, letting you take his hand. Any tears he had seem to evaporate instantly.
“So, I'm sorry that I hurt you. I stand by what I said before, Valentine’s Day sucks. But if it’s with you,” Blushing deeply, you play with Spencer's hand, large and veins defined compared to yours, shrugging, “I guess it’s not so bad.”
Spencer’s smile broadens, and he intertwines your fingers together. "So what you’re saying is, you don’t hate this?” He looks around his living room.
You shake your head, unable to stop the grin crossing your lips. “No. In fact, very much the opposite. Honestly, thank you for this, it’s beautiful. I have no words.” You breathe it all in; the candles, the flowers, the— Your nose wrinkles and you snort, “Did you burn something?”
Bashfully looking down, he scratches his chin. “I-uh-tried to make your favorite dishes. Though, I was hoping the candles and flowers would mask it.”
You giggle and pull him into you, snuggling into his side. “That’s okay. I’d much rather have you anyway.”
With Spencer a blushing, stuttering mess in your arms, head resting on your chest, you press a kiss to his hair and conclude; yeah, you don’t like Valentine’s Day. 
But you sure as hell love Spencer more.
AN:  FtH status: finished - 7/5. yes 7.
I realize this was not what anon requested but oh well i wrote this at 2 am 
I’m not that anti v day but i stand by the capitalistic aspect.
yes this takes place after For the Holidays.
also included luke bc hes my bro and i honestly think he deserves so much more than what the show gave also garvez ftw
happy post valentine’s day!!
Song: Lovefool by The Cardigans
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xpeachesncream · 3 years
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could i ask a request? an aiko drabbles of she seeing reader and taehyung together. please? thank you!
perfectly wrong | drabble [9]: when you and taehyung run into aiko at the movies and she’s still bitter.
word count: 1.7k
warnings: cussing, implied sexual content, miss sassy pants y/n and we love to see it cause tae can handle his baby
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"Tae!" You laughed loudly as he carried you on his back, galloping like a mad man as you both made your way from the garage to the movie theater.
"I told you it was faster that way." You drop down from his back as you both come into full view of the theater box office.
"Look at you, all tired and shit now."
"I don't know why you're complaining when you didn't have to do any work, missy." You laugh as you playfully shove him to the side. Tonight, you and Taehyung decided last minute that you both wanted to head out and watch a late night movie at the new fancy theater nearby. This new and fancy theater was the kind of movie theater that served you food and drinks right at your seat, with the added bonus of comfy, reclining chairs.
The sweet, sweet life.
"What do you wanna watch?" Taehyung's puppy eyes are glued to the board with all the movies and times listed. There was a good mix of new and older movies showing.
"Moana." His lips are sealed into a fine, thin line.
"What do you actually wanna watch?"
"Did I not just name a movie?"
"Rise of Skywalker? Nice!" He says, raising his hand for you to high-five. You return the high-five simply because he was your boyfriend, but you continued to shake your head.
"Let's watch Knives Out." He nods in agreement.
"Actually, I'm down for that one. I'm a fan of Chris Evans." You laugh.
"Yeah, same." He looks at you with a blank expression.
"Mm, actually nevermind." You playfully hit him as he realizes that you'd be gushing over Chris Evans during the entire movie.
"Oh quit, I'm obviously not the only one who'll be gushing over him."
"Look young lady, if I hear one word about how big his muscles are, you're leaving and I'm staying." You laugh.
"Go buy the tickets, Taehyung." You stand aside, waiting for Taehyung to buy the movie tickets. The theater wasn't too crowded, either because it was still too new or because it was a little later in the evening than most people would like - either way, you were okay with it. You didn't have to talk to people from campus or run into anyone you or Taehyung knew.
Except, you realize you've spoken too soon when you look around and realize who's standing a couple of feet away from you.
Aiko.
She's standing around with two other friends, but it looks like she had spotted you before you spotted her. She's keeping her gaze on you as she talks to her friend, her friend trying to slyly look back at you but failing miserably.
Girl, I really wish you would try me.
You for sure haven't forgotten the way she came at you during Jin's party, like you were the sole reason as to why her world came crumbling down on her.
"Uh?" Taehyung furrows his brows as he holds out the tickets. "Babe, you alright? Why do you look so annoyed?"
"Ohhhh, it's nothing." You smile through the annoyance she had brought onto you.
"Funny that you think I don't know you well enough." He turns to follow your gaze, watching Aiko start to strut her way over. He sighs when he returns his attention to you and squeezes your hand to try and relax you. "Come, let's just go inside."
"Hey guys, nice seeing you two here." Aiko says, batting her eyelashes at you and Taehyung innocently.
"Uh, hey." He turns to you. "Y/N? Let's go."
"Aiko." You flatly greet her.
"Happy to see it's actually working out between you two."
"Thanks." You copy her tone and scrunch your nose, hoping she'd catch on to the attitude making its way through. Honestly, Aiko was still bitter about how things went down. She's bitter because for awhile, Taehyung made it seem like she was the one who could change him. He made it seem like she was the one he was dropping all his stupid games for. She thought this was going to her. That's why she was so quick to leave Jin because Taehyung was so fucking good at woo'ing her and making her fall head over heels for him. Just down to the way he touched her and fucked her. The familiar, over-used sweet nothings he'd tell her.
Aiko's bitter. She's triggered. She really hates the fact that she had to run into you both, together.
Yeah, and you hate thinking about it. You hate thinking about the time your man had spent with her and what that was possibly like.
It made your skin crawl.
"Y/N, the movie." Taehyung says, no longer saying another word to Aiko. They were treating each other like long time exes, almost like how he was with Hana. Maybe this was just Taehyung's way of pushing people out when he didn't know how to deal.
"Okay." You respond as you give Aiko one last look before you and Taehyung are walking off to head inside.
"You know you don't need to be like that right?"
"Like what?"
"Little miss sassy pants."
"She didn't have to say anything in the first place. No one was looking for her." You looked at him, confused. Truly. Why did she have to look at you like that? Why did she have to talk to you to her friends like that? Girl, you don't know me. This was not your problem to deal with.
"Baby." Taehyung chuckles, shaking his head. He wasn't even surprised, he knew you always had this fire in you and there was really no way to put it out. "Not even worth the energy." He grabs your hand and leads the way to the theater.
As you both sit down and take a look at the menu to order some things, Taehyung leaves you alone for a second to use the bathroom. You were texting your friends when you had seen Taehyung's phone light up next to you. Typically, you don't really care what's going on in Taehyung's phone. You weren't that girl. However, your eyes drifted towards the screen for a quick second only to see a Snapchat notification from Aiko and a text.
You didn't even know he still had her name in the books like that.
"Baby, the bathrooms here are—" He proceeds to sign chef's kiss, but then realizes you were just staring at him. "Huh? What is it?" He looks down at his phone and checks the screen.
"I didn't even know you had her number still."
"I wasn't gonna go out of my way to delete it." He catches himself. "Wait, that came out wrong. I mean, after everything happened, it wasn't necessarily first on my list." You understood what he was saying but you just shrugged it off anyway.
"This must be important, being that she was just mad as fuck at you." He sighs and quickly opens the app to check the snap with you. He presses the notification, only to show her in a very seductive selfie photo. Cleavage in full view, biting onto a finger and hair all arranged to look semi-messy?
"Beats me." He lets go of the box to remove the snap. "I just feel like things could have worked out better if we had a proper conversation." He reads her text out loud.
"She really wants you." He swipes left to delete the text from his inbox before smirking at you and putting you in a gentle headlock.
"Mm, but I want this lady right here." You giggle as he showers your face with tons of kisses. He had let you free once he realized the flatbread you ordered was coming your way. He clapped happily and began to dig in.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Whatever you want, love."
"Were you really interested in her?" He shrugged.
"For a minute, I really didn't think I would be able to work things out with you. I really, really wanted to be with you before Aiko even came in the picture, but I was scared and the whole thing with Jungkook at the time was making it hard for me." You nodded.
"I'm just curious."
"So, I guess that's why she's mad. I kind of did give her that false hope." He chuckles. "But also, I mean, it's me."
"Taehyung, shut the hell up. You caused so many issues." You chuckled as you bit into your flatbread piece.
"Yesssss and I apologized, right?" He elongates his yes. You simply nod and take a sip of your cocktail. "Okay, then all is well. We're past this and she isn't in the picture. You are." He was right, there was really no use of being bitter or getting sassy about it. No matter what Aiko tried to do or say, he wasn't here with her. It was you.
Aiko was just gonna have to deal.
A couple of days later, you were working a shift at Jin's café with Jungkook. It hadn't been too busy, but there was a moment where things picked up and all three of you were busting your ass to get orders out. As time went out and things settled, Jin was able to fix whatever he needed to in the kitchen, while you and Jungkook held the fort down at the front.
"Who uses snapchat anymore?" Jin comes out of the kitchen, fiddling on his phone.
"Why?" You and Jungkook were rearranging the pastries.
"Aiko sent me a snapchat."
"Funny, she sent Taehyung one a couple of days ago when we ran into her at the movies."
"You ran into her?" Jungkook asks, taking the tongs out of your hands. "How'd that go?"
"Kind of awkward? She came up to us out of nowhere just to be like waaaaow so happy it's working out between you two." You mocked her tone again.
"At least she said she's happy about it." Jin joked in typical Jin fashion.
"What's the snap she sent you?" Jin presses down on the box to show the same exact photo she had sent Taehyung.
"Yah! Look!" Jin laughed, Jungkook going around to look over his shoulder.
"She has nice boobies."
"Oy! Inappropriate!" You bop Jungkook on the head before quickly leaning over and taking a look again. "She sent the same one to Tae."
"Should I send her the eyes?"
"No, no. Don't. Send her a thumbs up since that's all you ever send people." Jin and Jungkook start cracking up, making you walk away from their chaos.
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rosequartzwriting · 3 years
Text
With The Malfoys
Pairing: Draco Malfoy X Fem!Slytherin!Reader
Description: You had been staying with your boyfriend’s family, the Malfoys, before the summer break is over. You also go with them on a trip to Diagon Alley to get your school supplies for the new year. Draco comforts your insecurity. 
Warnings: Non
Word Count: 2.4k
A/N: Originally posted on Qutoev / TRANS LIVES MATTER / I really like this one, wrote it when I was on a Draco high a few years ago haha. Also more Draco cause he’s popular right now. (I’m not into Draco anymore but these exist)
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You began to stir in your sleep when someone started knocking on the guest bedroom door. The sun shining in your eyes from the large windows didn’t help at all. You heard the door open and small footsteps follow behind.
“Lady (Y/N)? You’ve requested for me to wake you up at this hour.”
The light voice of the small house elf fully woke you up. You sat up and rubbed the tiredness from your eyes. “Yes, thank you Sammi.”
“Also, Mrs. Malfoy has invited you for morning tea. And an owl came this morning for you.” The little house elf said as she began to flatten out the sheets on your large guest bed. She had handed you a letter closed with a familiar seal. You didn’t hesitate to rip it open read it.
Hope you’re doing well darling,
It does feel weird having you be gone from the house two weeks early, but I assume everything is fine over there. I received a letter from Lucius and he says he enjoys having you at the Manor, and that he has noticed how happy you make his son. He says he wants you back for your Christmas break, he invited me and your father as well. Let me know and we’ll hopefully see you for Christmas over there. I hope you are remembering your manners over there! Treat everyone well and don’t forget to go to Diagon Alley to get your stuff for school. And write me back if you can!
See you soon, I love you
Signed
-Your mother
You were staying at Malfoy Manor for the last two weeks of summer break. Despite them being controversial both at school and in wizarding world in general, you loved Draco’s family. They adored you and they insisted that you stay with them before the next school year started.
The letter from your mother made you happy, but also semi embarrassed you. You have often received positive things from both your and Draco’s parents that you were dating. It took a while for his father to warm up to you, but his mother loved you instantly. And your parents adored Draco. All four of them never let you forget how perfect they thought you were.
You got up and Sammi the house elf made your bed behind you. Over the past few days, she sort of became your personal house elf since she was assigned to you so much. You showed her nothing but kindness and compassion. It was nice to have someone like her with you all throughout your stay.
You got ready in the bathroom and dressed into a clean outfit. A simple black dress and some black heel boots. You found yourself dressing a bit more formal when with the Malfoys, you grew to like it (and you felt good wearing nice dresses).
You came back into your room to find Sammi tidying it up a bit. She worked really hard by what you have seen her do.
“I appreciate your company, Sammi.”
She turned to you and her huge eyes lit up. “No one has ever been as kind to me as you, Lady (Y/N)!” Her speech was not like other house elves, not referring to herself in third person.
“It’s nothing don’t worry.” You waved it off. “Also I told you that you don’t have to call me ‘lady’.”
“Are you sure? I’m too used to being so formal to our guests."
You nodded and she smiled. You walked over to your bedside table and picked up your wand to place in the belt of your dress.
“But I quite like the sound of ‘lady (Y/N)’!” Sammi beamed, dusting a nearby shelf.
“There’s no need, really.” You replied, picking up the glass of water next to where your wand was and taking a sip.
“But really…” She paused. “Maybe someday I’ll be calling you Mrs. Malfoy.”
You choked and water went down the wrong way.
“I honestly do hope you and Master Draco get married. Maybe it will happen once you both graduate from Hogwarts. Oh, a house elf can only dream.” And with that she left your room, leaving you a coughing and blushing mess.
~~~~
Descending the main staircase, you made your way towards the drawing room where Narcissa Malfoy often invited you to have tea in the morning. You knew where you were going now, the manor had become familiar dispute its size. The first few days you always found yourself lost in the giant mansion, there were too many rooms to explore and curiosity took over plenty of times.
“Good morning, darling.” Narcissa greeted you while using her wand to pour you tea.
“Morning, Narcissa.” She had insisted that you call her by her first name.
“Did you get your letter? Who was it from?”
You sat down in the chair across from hers, it was soft and large. Taking your tea, you curled up on the chair. “The letter was from my mother.”
She smiled into her tea cup. “Oh (your mother’s name), I do miss her. Maybe she and your father should join us for Christmas…oh has Lucius or Draco mentioned that to you yet?”
“They hadn’t told me, but mum mentioned it in her letter. She’d love to come I’m sure.”
“I hope they do.” Narcissa smiled. “I’m sure if you asked them you all could join us.”
“I can ask them. I should write them back.”
Narcissa was already on it, using her magic to hand you a piece of parchment and a quill with ink already. You thanked her and began a letter back to your mother, writing on top of a book on your lap. Neutral peaceful silence fell in the room, Narcissa now petting a cat while you wrote to your mother and drank your tea. While writing, the large doors to the room opened and you wondered who had entered.
"Morning, Princess."
It was Draco. You felt his presence over your shoulder so you scooted over in your chair for him to sit. He did so, plopping down and slinging his arm around you.
"Morning mother." He smiled innocently, she was eyeing him for not acknowledging her earlier along with you. He then glanced down at you , "Whats this?"
"Mum wrote me this morning, replying back." You answered, then raising your quill to tickle his face for a split second just to bug him.
“Oh Draco, what do you think about the (L/N)s joining us for Christmas this year?” His mother asked him, chiming in about the letter.
"That would be great." He answered but he sounded unsure, then he continued which explained it, "but...do we want them near the other people we usually invite to our Christmas parties?"
"What do you mean?" She raised an eyebrow.
He turned to you. “I’m sure you wouldn’t want to meet my aunt Bella, (Y/N).”
“Do not speak of your aunt like that Draco.” Narcissa scoffed. “But...it is true that my sister is a little…uh”
“Insane?” Draco suggested, raising an eyebrow.
“Peculiar.” She corrected while eyeing her son.
"I'm sure me and my parents will survive a party here." You laughed.
~~~~
“Why is it that whenever I set foot in Diagon Alley, I instantly smell mudbloods?”
You slapped him on the shoulder. “Draco!”
“What? It’s kinda true.” This told you that he was trying to make a joke, but you just rolled your eyes.
You, Draco, Lucius and Narcissa were now walking down the street in Diagon Alley to get the things on your list for your next year at Hogwarts.
Once you got to a populated area, you felt eyes staring at you and the Malfoys. You instantly grew self conscious. You wrapped your arms around yourself and suddenly became aware of how heavy your footsteps sounded with the heels. Did you look like a snob to them? Too dramatic or over the top? Actually...do people think that you’re a Death Eater?
Draco noticed that you had become fidgety and nervous. He put it together and saw that you didn’t like the stares. He reached out and gently grabbed your hand to hold it.
“It’s okay, darling.” He whispered, pulling you closer to him protectively. “Keep that head held high. They’re just jealous that you’re so beautiful.”
You blushed and chuckled under your breath. Soon you found a small push of confidence, head up and smiling.
Yeah that’s right, I’m with the Malfoys! I probably look really good right now.
One of the first stops was Flourish and Blotts, where you needed to get the new textbooks for your classes. Draco’s parents had wandered to speak with another pure blood family that was on the other side of the shop, while you and Draco looked for textbooks. You scanned the shelves for a copy of Advanced Potion-making, and you felt Draco looming over your shoulder as he helped you look.
Then something caught your attention and you listened carefully. There was a group talking somewhere, and you swear you heard them mutter Malfoy and (L/N). Draco was busy mumbling to himself the book titles as he browsed the shelves, while you listened. It clicked in your head and the voices were suddenly recognizable.
You didn’t look in their direction and tried to act casual. Draco hadn’t noticed yet, so you slapped him lightly to get his attention.
“Draco.” You whispered.
He kept talking to himself, “Scamander? What an unfortunate surname to have...”
You rolled your eyes, “Draco!”
“What?”
“Shh! Listen.”
He did, then he understood what you meant. The two of you listened into the conversation while still trying to look like you were busy.
“Also why do they always dress like that? Are they going to a party?”
“Those heels (L/N) is wearing look really uncomfortable.”
“I’m surprised they’re still together. How long has it been?”
“A few years now.”
“Longer than most people at Hogwarts.”
“I don’t care, it’s still disgusting.”
“Is she with him just because he’s rich?”
“Maybe.”
"Maybe they've been arranged, like an arranged marriage."
"I wouldn't be surprised, not many pure blood families to keep the Malfoy family completely pure."
“They look like they’re plotting something…”
“Just by looking at books?”
“They always look like they’re up to no good.”
“Probably been bowing to You-Know-Who all summer.”
Draco had enough and he spoke up, “You’re really bad at being quiet, Potter.”
Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger all stopped talking, and turned to you and Draco with shocked faces. A smirk pulled at your lips, and you assumed your boyfriend was doing the same, the menacing smiles of a perfect Slytherin duo and couple.
You followed Draco as he approached the trio, knowing that all hell was about to break loose. But you were here for it. You stood there, arms crossed over your chest as you watched Draco and Harry have a standoff.
While the boys were nagging at each other, you watched with amusement. You quickly glanced to the side and looked at the bookshelf. “Oh look, here they are!” You took two copies of Advanced Potion-making off the shelf, which was right beside Granger. Somehow this irritated her.
“Oh by the way.” You started. “I’m not with him just because he’s rich,” You did your best intentionally annoying Hermione Granger impression. “and we weren't arranged. Pfff. Shame on you, mudblood.”
Alright maybe that was a little low for you to stoop down to, but what she said really got on your nerves so you said the first insult you thought of to call her.
The tension created by the mutual hatred on both sides caused a few other shoppers to stop and watch for at least one second. Draco was in the process of defending his last name from association with the dark arts, and it was amusing to you that he could piss off Harry just by barely opening his mouth.
“And I’d like to see you walk in these.” You showed off your heeled shoes to Granger which you noticed bugged her. “You’d probably trip and break your ankle in one step.”
Then you both went off, mirroring Draco and Harry. It could have gone on for much longer, but a large figure that appeared made the three Gryffindors tense and freeze.
“I really hope these blood traitors aren't giving you two any trouble.” Lucius’ voice rang out, him now standing behind you both with his wife.
“They were speaking negatively about us.” You stated with irritation, but with a hint of a smug smile.
Narcissa put her hands on her son’s shoulders protectively. "Forget them, dears. They are not worth your time."
"You're right mother, they're not at all." Draco held his nose in the air and began to walk off with Narcissa.
Lucius glared at the three, “Do not ever disrespect my future daughter-in-law. Come along, (Y/N).” The man lead you away from them, you still holding the textbooks you and Draco needed.
That comment made you blush, but it put a smile on your face once you saw the trio’s expressions; in some state of disbelief and jaws slightly slack. So you followed Lucius with your head held high.
~~~~
It was now September first, and the Hogwarts Express was scheduled to leave any minute now, but Narcissa’s bone crushing hug was preventing you from getting on the train.
“Mum, let her go.” Draco rolled his eyes and tried to pry his mother’s arms off of you.
She eventually did, but took your shoulders to look at you, "You watch over him, alright?"
"I will." You laughed.
Draco grabbed you hand and you both jumped onto the train just as it was leaving. You looked back and waved to his parents.
“We love you! Stay out of trouble!” His mother called one last time before they were out of sight.
"Why does mum have to be so embarrassing sometimes..." Draco mumbled under his breath as he pulled you along the hall to find an empty car.
"Because it's her job to embarrass you." You giggled, and he shook his head.
Once you found an empty car and settled in, you both sat down for the long train ride. You leaned your head on Draco's shoulder, and he let out a breath of amusement. You knew he was smirking, with content.
"You can take a nap if you want, darling." Draco chuckled, seeing how comfortable you have become now cuddling up to him.
"I could~" You sighed, now wrapping your arms around his torso, "wake me up when we get there..."
Draco smiled, placing one hand around your waist and the other on top of one of yours. He kissed your temple, and made a mental note that if Crabbe and Goyle wanted to share a car with you both, he wouldn't let them wake you.
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queenbirbs · 3 years
Text
the open door | Ethan x MC
Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x MC
Warnings: swearing, some brief mentions of corpses and body horror, spooks and possible spectres 
Word count: 7.7k
Premise: Bryce invites Sloane, Sienna, and Aurora on a tour of a haunted estate on the night before Halloween. What could go wrong?  
Notes: I’m super bummed that we didn’t get a Halloween-themed chapter for this book, especially since it’s my favorite holiday. Takes place post chapter 11, though I’ve played with the timeline a bit to include Halloween. Re-post because it fell out of the tag, as posts seem to want to do as of late. 
Taglist: @maurine07 @caseyvalentineramsey
 ------
“You are aware there’s no such thing as witches, right?” 
“Well, yeah,” Bryce scoffs. “Maybe. Besides, I said she was rumored to be a witch. That’s a whole different thing.”
“Oh, right, of course it is.” In the backseat, Aurora rolls her eyes. “Just tell that to all the people killed during the Salem witch trials due to mass hysteria.”
“Hey, now -- it’s not like she was killed for being a witch.”
“Right. She pulled a classic Rose for Emily,” Sloane mutters while Sienna makes a gagging noise.
“What?” Bryce asks. 
“It’s a short story by Faulkner.”
“Oh.” There’s a brief pause. Sloane wonders if he even knows who that is. Then: “Is he the dude that had a hard-on for the Civil War?”
“Yeah,” Aurora snorts. “Basically.” 
“Yeah, never read any of his stuff. I think I used SparkNotes for one of his books in undergrad.”
“Same,” Sloane admits, to which Bryce shoots her a look of faux-surprise. “Yeah, yeah, we all had to skate by sometimes.” 
“Well, well, well,” he crows. “Looks like the ‘next generation of medicine’ isn’t so high and mighty after all, huh?” 
“Wait, how did you--”
“Ramsey was four drinks deep at Donahue’s the other day, and one of the interns came up and bothered him about a possible spot on the team. Which meant we all overheard the twenty-minute spiel about what a great doctor you are.” He snickers as she puts a hand over her face and groans. “Yeah, it was real sweet. Real obvious, but sweet.”
She’s saved by the GPS on her phone, cutting through the music playing over the car speakers; Bryce takes the next exit as instructed. The off-ramp spits them out onto a two-lane county road.  Posted across from the solitary stop sign, the blue services sign offers nothing but blank, white squares. 
“There’s a bathroom, right?” Sienna asks. “Because I’m not seeing a gas station.”
“It’s a house, you guys,” Bryce scoffs, “not a cave.” 
“A haunted house,” she clarifies. 
“Well, I mean, I don’t think the toilets are haunted.”
For several miles, there’s nothing but sweeping woodlands and the occasional passing car. Long squiggles of tar decorate the asphalt, snaking across the empty, leaf-strewn road. The setting sun casts a golden hue over everything, spears of light cutting through the tree trunks. It would be a nice, evening drive if it weren’t for where they were headed. 
Forty minutes north of Boston lies the small, nondescript town of Angler. Even under the cover of dusk, Sloane can tell that it’s one of those towns. Pretty Tudors line the main street, their porches decorated with smiling scarecrows sitting on bales of hay; banners along the telephone poles advertise the annual apple festival. The bank and the post office and the dry cleaners are all tucked together in the refurbished general store. It’s the stereotypical, pleasant, all-American town. Which means that it’s the perfect place to hide a dark stain of history. 
Why Bryce signed up for such a thing and how he won the tickets is beyond her. When he asked them all to join him for a haunted house, Sloane expected the typical theme: some dingy warehouse refurbished enough to meet modern building codes, full of tight mazes and masked actors with chainsaws.
“Nah, guys, this is the real deal,” he gloated over lunch the previous afternoon. “Back in the 1800s, this woman -- uhh Margaret, or Maggie, I think, yeah Maggie Angler -- she was one of the Boston Brahmins, owned this estate out in the country, blah blah blah. No one knows a whole lot about her because she was a little weird and she kept to herself. At some point, this dude woos her and they get married. But then, a few years later, he dies. Neighbors drop by to offer casseroles or whatever, but she won’t answer the door, so they give up and leave her alone. A few months go by, and suddenly this dude from town goes missing. Then a year, and another goes missing. This continues for several years and--” 
“So, what, she’s some kind of black widow?” Elijah asked. 
“No, this isn’t one of those Marvel--” Bryce’s brow furrowed and then lifted, realization striking his handsome face. “--oh, heh, yeah, sorry. But yeah, sort of. It wasn’t until word got around that the latest dude was seen talking to Maggie at the store that people got suspicious of her. So, they gather up some people and storm the house, where they find a Satanic Bible and other spooky shit. But that’s not the only thing they find.”
They all glance around at each other, waiting to see who will encourage Bryce to break his silence and finish the damn story. “They also find... the missing dudes.”
“What, buried in the backyard?” Sloane asked, and frowned when Bryce shook his head. 
“No, not buried. She killed them and then kept them in the house. Supposedly, they were posed at the table or sitting on the couch, rotting away.”
 Sienna made a show of pushing her plate away. “That’s disgusting.”
“I know there’s a group of people in Indonesia that keep their dead relatives at home,” Aurora said, “but they’re preserved and cared for. This doesn’t sound like that.”
“Nope.” Elijah shook his head. “Definitely not the same thing.”
“What happened to the woman?” Sloane asked.
“No idea -- get this: they never found her.” Bryce lifted his eyebrows for dramatic effect. “But the story goes that she still haunts the place, searching for her lost lovers, and maybe… trying to get some new ones.”  
Jackie, who had been busy scrolling away on her phone through the tale, snorted into her salad. 
“And you want us to come with you to some evil witch’s house on the night before Halloween to go ghost hunting? I may not believe in any of this shit, but no fucking way.” 
“Yeah,” Elijah sighed, cringing at the crestfallen look on Bryce’s face. “Sorry dude, but I’ll pass. My idea of fun is a John Carpenter movie marathon, not a tour around Jane the Ripper’s house.” 
“Okay, understood.” With that, Bryce looked to the remaining three and turned on the charm, draping his arm across Sloane’s shoulders. “C’mon, ladies, whaddaya say? Hard to pass up the prospect of touring a bona fide haunted mansion with one of the most handsome men you know -- second only to Elijah here.”  
Tapping at her chin, Sienna nodded and grinned. “Sounds fun. I like scary things.” 
Aurora, on the other hand, shot him a skeptical look. “Are you going to shout at the air and act like you’re possessed, like I’ve seen that one ghost hunter do on TV? The one with the spiky hair?” she demanded to know. 
“Uhhh no to all of those things, but especially to the spiky hair.”  
“Okay, then,” she shrugged, “I’ll go.” 
Every eye at the table turned to Sloane; Bryce squeezed her shoulder in encouragement. 
“Alright,” she agreed. “It’d be fun to get spooked, I guess. I’m down.”
Which is how she comes to be in the passenger seat of Bryce’s car, leaning forward onto the dashboard as they take the final turn onto a hidden lane. A thick tunnel of trees swallows them up as they drive deeper into the woods. After several miles, there’s a break in the pines, and then: sprawled atop a hill, looming above them, is the house. Even if she hadn’t heard the backstory, Sloane feels like the place would still give her the creeps. With its filmy lace curtains and its tall windows glowing yellow in the approaching darkness, the house looks like it’s been pulled from an Edward Hopper painting. Worn pavers lead from the semi-circular driveway and up to the front porch. Framing either side of the steps, thin, brittle blades of tufted hairgrass shift in the wind. Two people turn from the front door and raise a hand in greeting.
Bryce kills the engine and twists around in his seat to grin at his compatriots. 
“You guys ready to get scaaaared?”
Sienna wraps her hands around Sloane’s seat and leans forward, her eyes wide as she stares out the windshield. 
“Why does it look like The Amityville Horror house?” 
“Is this a bad time to mention that the Blair Witch Project’s producers used this place as inspiration?”
“Yeah,” she hisses, “definitely a bad time.”
Shouldering open her door, Sloane lets in the cool October air in an attempt to corral their attention. It works; the rest of them pile out of the car with her and approach the couple. 
As the current owners of the property, Jack and Nancy Bell guide them through the main floor of the house, pointing out spots of reported activity. The interior is lovely -- one of those Sloane would see in a Pictagram post of a wedding venue, with all those carved banisters and original wainscoting. Her brother, a successful carpenter in the Twin Cities, would have a field day in here. Most of the furniture is original to the house, as well, and in surprisingly good condition.  
The only aspect setting the house apart from any other on the historical registry are the props. In the front hall, a bulletin board hosts an array of newspaper clippings. The earlier articles blame a serial killer, dubbed the ‘Butcher of Angler,’ for the mens’ disappearances. Then, starting on October 28th, 1892, the headlines change to the ‘Wicked Witch of Winthrope County.’ In the drawing room sits an Ouija board, surrounded by melted candles. A cauldron and a Satanic Bible share space on the kitchen counter; corked bottles of what look like cooking spices and herbs clutter the open cabinets. Mannequins lounge at the dining table or on the sofa, dressed in dusty clothes, their jaws slack, their painted eyes still and dull. Beside them, framed in cheap plastic, are the grainy photographs of the corpses as they were found. To Sloane, it all feels hokey, like a regular haunted house with the strobe lights turned off. 
There’s something else, though, something underneath the fine layer of dust and the creaking floorboards and the shrouded furniture. It skitters across her neck and down her back, making her shiver, which she discounts as a wayward draft in the old house. 
It’s the distinct feeling of being watched.  
“Aside from the big house, there’s a carriage house to the left there. We rent it out in the summer and fall for overnight stays.” Jack gestures to the east as they step out onto the back veranda, where, just beyond the slope of lawn, a smaller house sits with a solitary porch light glowing. “And back down the path there will lead you to the lake. When we bought the place, the deed stated that there was a cabin out near the state park line, but we’ve never been able to find evidence of it.”
“Maggie’s been seen down by the lake, too,” Nancy chimes in. “People say they see her there, inside the boathouse, or walking along the shore with her head down, as if she’s searching for something.” 
“We’ve got lanterns here if you want to use them as you go about the grounds, though you’re welcome to use your flashlights.” Jack nudges a neat row of antique lanterns with his sneaker. “For the optimal experience, though, we recommend turning off all the inside lights and using secondary light sources instead.” He chuckles when Sienna makes a throaty noise of dissent. 
The couple leads them back through the house and into the front hall to finish the tour. While Jack goes over the various rules, Nancy motions for Sloane to follow her out onto the front porch. 
“I didn’t want to say anything in front of your friends,” she starts off in a whisper, “but I wanted to talk to you about our son, Ben.”
For a fleeting moment, Sloane thinks that she’s going to get questioned about his bowel movements or a mysterious rash, that Bryce must have told them he was bringing along his doctor friends. “When he was seven, he nearly--” Nancy cuts herself off, pressing a hand to her heart, “--he drowned when we were at the beach in Florida. I did CPR until the EMTs got there, and they were able to resuscitate him, thank God.”
“I’m sorry,” Sloane murmurs, “that must’ve been awful.”
“It was. But I’m -- the reason I’m telling you all this is because, after that, Ben seems to be more… open. More open than the rest of us.”
“I’m sorry,” Sloane says again, though this time out of confusion, “but I don’t--”
With a huff, Nancy shakes her head and waves her hands. “No, no, I apologize. I must sound crazy. I just wanted to warn you that, due to what happened to you, you might see things or experience things that your friends can’t. That’s all, dear.” 
Sloane opens her mouth to question her further, but they’re interrupted by the rest of the gang filing out beside them. “We’ll be back at one a.m. to lock up behind you,” Nancy says as she follows her husband down to their car. 
With a cheery honk, the little Subaru rumbles down the winding driveway and disappears. The sun having set during the tour, the landscape before them is now draped with the heavy blanket of night. The moon peeks at them from just above the treetops, as if still deciding on whether or not to come out. The only lights are far-off, unmoving: porch lights of the houses back in town; cell towers with their red stars blinking lazily against the dark. A cold wind moves through the trees, rustling the leaves and scattering them across the front walk, the dried edges hissing along the brick. 
“Can you believe he said no alcohol?” Bryce breaks the silence with a whine. “I read about this fun séance thing you do with tequila shots and--” 
“No séances!” Sienna declares. “And definitely no tequila!” 
“Can we argue about this where it’s warmer?” Aurora suggests and steps back into the house. 
As she and Sienna wander off into the drawing room, Sloane wraps a hand around Bryce’s arm and pulls him back. 
“Did you tell her about me?”
His nose scrunches up to meet his furrowed brows. “Tell who about what?” 
“The-- Nancy, did you tell her about what happened to me? With… with the senator, and…” it’s embarrassing how much of a struggle it is to get the words out, even now, even after three weeks and two therapy appointments. 
His face falls from confusion to concern. Bryce reaches up and lays his hand over her own. 
“Slo, I didn’t tell them, I swear. I would never,” he promises. “Did she say something to you?”      
She loosens her hold, frustrated at herself that she even considered he would do such a thing. He’s one of her best friends, the man who handed over the reins to a cutting-edge surgery just to be by her side. 
“Yeah, no, listen: it’s fine,” she stumbles through a paltry reassurance. “She was probably trying to scare me, that’s all.” 
He gives her a quick once-over, lips twisting into a frown as he debates on whether or not to push. She bites back a breath of relief when he relents, his hand releasing hers.
“Okay,” he says, and nudges her into the house ahead of him. “C’mon. Between the two of us, I think we can convince them to turn off the lights.”
------
Although he puts up a good fight, Bryce loses on the no-lights front. 
Which is just as well, because by the time they reach the second floor, Sloane is glad for the light from the antique lamps. To be fair, nothing actually happens: no spooks, no spectres, and no signs from the former resident. Nothing she can point to with any amount of certainty. Whatever it is hovers out of reach, just on the tip of her tongue, but she can’t seem to give it a name. Maybe it lies -- like any good, scary movie -- in the setting. For as grand as the house is, time and dereliction have taken its fine features hostage. Thick, gray dust coats the wooden spindles and curled handrails of the antique staircase. The corridors are tight, the shadows gathering in the space where the lights can’t seem to reach. Small curls of peeling wallpaper look like fingers reaching out from the wall, backlit by the sconces. The cloying scent of wood rot and mold fills the air, like a pile of papers left to curl and yellow with age. The rooms are small, cluttered with furniture and trinkets and artwork. 
Sloane stares at such a portrait in the master bedroom, where a couple stares down at her from above the fireplace. The man sits in a chair, the woman standing beside him with her hand on his shoulder. It would be any other family portrait, if it weren’t for the unsettling glaze over the man’s sunken eyes. 
“Bryce, please don’t-- aaaand he’s sitting on the bed.” 
“You do know that’s where they found her husband, right?” Sienna points out. “That’s why there’s a mannequin on it. And a picture of his dead body on the nightstand.”
“Maybe Maggie will see what a catch I am if I’m laid out for her. I’ve never met a woman over the age of sixty who could resist my charms.” Bryce waggles his eyebrows as he bounces once, then twice on the mattress before stretching out. “What’s up, bro?” he asks the mannequin beside him before doing a double-take. “Hey, it’s Annie!”
He snatches off the ugly wig and fake beard, and lo and behold, an old CPR dummy gapes up at them all. Sloane snorts and shakes her head. 
“Looks like the years haven’t been kind to her.”   
“Probably saddled with student loans just like the rest of us,” Aurora mutters as she wanders over to inspect the photograph. “Had to get a second job here.”
“Hey, that was a joke!” Bryce commends. “And a pretty good one at that.”
“I do jokes.”
“You so do not.” 
A muffled bang from somewhere in the house stops their banter. Everyone glances at each other, verifying that everyone in their group is indeed in the room. 
“What was that?” Sienna whispers. 
“Probably the pipes,” Aurora says. “It is an old house.” 
As if on cue, the lights flicker once, then switch off, sinking them into complete darkness. There’s a flurry of noise as everyone digs out their phones; the bedroom seems even creepier, now, under the white glow of their flashlights.  
“What do we do?” Sienna hisses, scurrying from the window to latch onto Aurora.  
“We could always search for the breaker,” she suggests. 
“Which would be where?”
“In the basement, most likely.”
“Um, no,” Sienna balks. “Hell no.”  
“Are you guys serious right now?” Bryce hops down from the bed and pokes his head out the open doorway. “This is so cool! Who wants to go downstairs with me and grab the Ouija board?”
“If you bring that thing near me, I will break it in half.”
He grimaces at Sienna’s threat. 
“You’re not really supposed to do that with them. It’ll keep the door open for the spirits to come in.”
“It’s a toy made by Hasbro,” Aurora scoffs. “It’s not going to ‘let in’ anything. And the planchette doesn’t actually move on its own. That’s due to the ideomotor effect.”
Moving over to the window, Sloane presses her temple against the pane’s edge and squints. Just past the eastern wing, she spots a faint halo of yellow light on the lawn. 
“Hey,” she raises her voice over their bickering. “It looks like the carriage house still has power.” 
“Great!” Sienna squeaks and pulls Aurora with her towards the door. “Let’s check it out. I… love carriage houses.” 
They push past Bryce and start back down the hall. Turning from the doorway, a coy smile spreads across his face, a single eyebrow lifting at his wordless request. 
“Oh, no.” Sloane shakes her head as she crosses the room. “I’m not staying up here so you can play Twenty Questions with a ghost.”
She ignores his good-natured grumbling and leads him to the staircase, where Aurora and Sienna are waiting on the landing. Aimed at the ground, their flashlights slice at the hand-carved walls; dustmotes dance in the twin beams, kicked up by their feet. The air feels heavier, mustier here, too, like breathing through wet wool. They tromp down the stairs and across the first floor to the kitchen. Being at the back of the group, Sloane can’t help but glance back now and again at the shadowed recesses, searching for the source of her uneasiness. That she finds nothing amiss doesn’t seem to curb her anxiety. 
The sensation wanes when she closes the door behind them, sealing up the house once more. 
“How is it warmer outside than in there?” Sienna asks as they start cutting across the lawn for the carriage house.  
Bryce zips up his coat and shrugs. “I’ve heard that ghosts tend to suck the energy out of a room, creating cold spots when they mani--”
“Please stop talking,” she begs. “At least until we’re somewhere with electricity that actually works.” 
“Aw, come on, you’ve got nothing to worry about. You’ve seen enough scary movies in your life to know that we’re safe if we travel together. Besides, everyone knows the funny guy goes first.”  
“I think that honor belongs to people of color, now, sorry.” Aurora chuckles when he spins around to wince at her. 
“Yeah, fair point.” 
Coated in fallen leaves, the ground crunches loud underneath their shoes, blocking out the night sounds as the four of them approach the smaller house. “But for real, I don’t think we have much to worry about from Maggie here. I mean, almost all ghost stories are about little white girls from Victorian times named Sally or Sarah or Kate.”
“That’s because of the spiritualism boom in the late nineteenth century,” Aurora answers.
Bryce sighs and quickly changes the subject, uninterested in a history lesson. 
Converted into a proper guest house sometime after the turn of the twentieth century, the carriage house lacks the severe decay of the main house. Though not as grand, the wallpaper here is intact, the dust not as heavy. It might just be the comforts of amenities such as central heating and electricity, but the inside of the house feels much more benign. As they complete a loop around the building, though, Sloane realizes that the feeling of being watched still remains, growing stronger when she passes or glances out one of the windows. With the glare of the lights, though, it’s hard to see much of anything past the panes. None of the others seem to be frightened -- or if they do, they keep quiet. The same can’t be said when Sienna flips the light on in the parlor.  
Toddler-size dolls lean against the walls, their porcelain hands cupped around their faces. Each wears a pretty, pastel dress trimmed in white lace, their hair falling down their backs in long, springy ringlets of dark brown, cherry red, and honey gold. Bryce makes a noise of disgust when he spins one around, its face blank: no eyes, no nose, no mouth. Time-out dolls, Sloane tells them, remembering her grandmother’s friend who owned several back in the early nineties -- though hers were all dressed as clowns. 
“People actually rent this place out? They pay money to stay here?” Sienna shudders. “I’d rather sleep in the other house, even with all the cobwebs and mannequins.”
“And the ghosts,” Bryce adds. 
“Ghosts don’t exist,” Aurora says. 
“Okay, Scully, that’s enough out of you.”
------
As the clock ticks closer to ten, Bryce votes to go check out the lake. Aurora and Sienna, however, vote to stay in the warm, well-lit kitchen. The plan is decided to split up and then meet back at the main house in time for midnight. 
“You know,” Bryce explains as he and Sloane make their way across the lawn, “because it’s the witching hour.”
“I thought it was three a.m.” 
“It is if you’re taking into account REM cycles and all that, but I’m not. All the legends I’ve read say…” he trails off, frowning as he jogs up the main house’s back steps. “Hey, you shut the door when we left, right?”
Her phone’s flashlight sweeps up the French doors; one of them is ajar, standing open several inches. She reaches for the handle and shuts it, listening for the snick of the latch.  
“I guess I didn’t pull it closed enough.”   
“Or,” he taunts as he grabs two of the lanterns from the porch, “something else opened it.” Ignoring her scoff, he pockets his phone and hands one of the lanterns to her. “These are nice. Do you think they’re original?”
“Bryce, they bought these from a Cracker Barrel. And besides, they’re battery-powered.” 
“Oh.” 
The back of the estate has been left to run wild. Overgrown swath rolls along the ground like dunes, snagging dead leaves between the dry blades. Thickets of barren shrubs creep out from the distant tree line. The path to the lake is marked by an old fence post, tied with a tattered ribbon. They make their way across the wide expanse of lawn, the trees ahead towering higher and higher the closer they get to the forest. Sloane can’t help but check over her shoulder. The house is just as they left it, though the moonlight is too weak to see if the door is still closed. 
Gravel crunches under their feet as they step onto the trail. The quiet night is broken by a ding from her phone. 
How goes the ghost hunting? 
She hooks the lantern in the crook of her arm and taps out her reply: Fun so far, lights went off by themselves. Very spooky 10/10
Ethan: What do fractions have to do with what you’re doing?
Sloane: Nvm 
Ethan: This isn’t 2002. You do have a full keyboard under your fingertips. 
Sloane: so?
Ethan: So there’s no excuse for using T9 acronyms.       
Sloane: Never thought I’d see the day you reprimand me for texting 
Ethan: I’ll spare you the lecture and let you get back to your witch hunt. Text me when you get home, please, so I know you returned safely. 
She hits send on the next message. Several seconds later, a red bubble appears beside her will do!, informing her that it refused to send. A quick glance at the top of the screen shows the one measly bar of service her phone is clinging onto. With a sigh, she tucks it away.   
“How’s Dr. Ramsey?” Bryce asks.
“Preparing a TEDtalk on prehistoric cell phone etiquette.” 
His nose scrunches up. “What?”
“Nothing,” she chuckles, exhaling through her mouth just to see her foggy breath. 
The light from the lanterns casts an eerie, yellow glow across the tree trunks and underbrush. Creaks and knocks echo up out of the dark -- branches smacking against each other as a cold wind sweeps through the area. The last vestiges of October skitter along the ground; the leaves almost sound like footsteps, dragging across the dirt behind them. The trail tightens as it winds down a small embankment and into a hollow. Their pace seems to pick up, though neither of them mention it. Sloane burrows into her scarf at the sudden dip in temperature.   
“How’s Keiki?” she asks, more so out of need to make conversation than actual curiosity.  
“Probably eating her way into a food coma with the pizza money I left for her, and beating all my high scores on Need for Speed.” He’s grinning as he says it, though, which Sloane finds encouraging. “I invited her to go with us, but she said no.” 
She doesn’t miss the crestfallen expression that crosses his face for a moment. 
“Trust me when I say this, because I speak from the experience of having a younger sibling, but she didn’t say no because she doesn’t like you or anything. It’s because she thinks you and your friends are dorks.” 
He sputters at the insult. “I’m not a dork!”
“You so totally are.”  
“Am not.” 
“Are too!” she argues. “Ethan thinks I’m bad, but you -- you come in on your days off and you like it.”
“That’s called dedication to the craft.” 
“That’s called being a dork.” 
What little she can see of the path ahead is more winding turns, more endless seas of bark and brushwood. But just when she thinks that they’ll never reach the end, that they’ll wind up stumbling upon Elly Kedward’s house -- there’s a small dot of light and then a break in the trees, where the path spits them out onto a rocky shore. The lake glints under their lanterns, the pearlescent gleam of the moon dancing on its surface. 
“Oh, hey, that was nice of them.”
Sloane’s gaze tracks along the shore and over to where he’s gestured. A solitary lantern sits in front of an old boathouse, illuminating the weathered cedar shake.  
“Too bad they can’t install lights along the path,” she mutters as they make their way to the structure. 
“What part of ‘bona fide haunted mansion’ did you not understand? This is the thrill of it!” 
Bryce shoulders open the door to a dim room with a half-sunken rowboat in the center. 
“Thrilling,” she drones, side-stepping his attempt to whack her arm. “Right.” 
They poke through the dirty raincoats and rusted tackle boxes. The wooden planks under their feet jostle and flex. Everything smells of wet and mold, the walls slick with grime. “I can think of several better places to haunt.” 
Bryce hums his agreement as he prods at a stack of old hunting magazines, the pages sealed together. Sloane steps over to look down at the boat, where minnows dart underneath the oars to escape her light. 
“Watch where you step,” she tells him as she crosses to the starboard side. “Some of these boards are really falling apa--”
The rest is lost to her shriek as the floor underneath her snaps. Her foot goes through the wood. She drops the lantern and scrambles to stay upright. The soggy planks slip from her grasp as she falls backwards, and then: water, the icy rush of it closing over her head. 
She fights back a gasp at the sudden cold. With her knee trapped in the joists, she can’t get her feet under her to kick to the surface. Her hands sweep out, flailing desperately. Something hard slams against her neck. She twists at the waist; the sunken lantern illuminates the long shadow of the boat. She digs her fingers into the wood. The cold saps at what strength she has, her muscles refusing to work as she tries to push herself out of the water. Her lungs ache; her heartbeat thuds inside her skull. Down in the murky depths below, a long shadow reaches towards her. Fingers, then hands seize her waist; her skin hits the cold air. Sloane blinks away the muddy haze that coats her eyes and sucks in a lungful of blessed oxygen. 
“Sloane!” Bryce shouts, as if he was expecting to pull out someone else. He ropes an arm around her back and helps her up out of the water. “Jesus, you scared the shit out of--” the rest of his words are lost to an undignified oof as Sloane wraps her arms around his neck. 
“Thanks.”
His hands come up to rest along her back, gently rubbing there to warm her frozen skin.
“I would say don’t mention it, but please do. The notoriety of me saving your life needs to make its way back to the hospital, so Rahul will finally go on a date with me.” 
She fights the urge to roll her eyes. 
“You would be concerned about getting a leg over while mine is still stuck.”
“Oh, whoops. Sorry, here, I’ll...” Sitting back on his heels, he steadies her against him and helps her shimmy out of the hole she’s made. Despite how saturated the planks are, her jeans are torn along her knee, where blood wells across several scratches. “Ouch,” he hisses. 
“Nothing a few bandages and a tetanus shot won’t fix,” she assures. Wobbling as she stands, Sloane limps over to the storage chest in the corner. The blanket she finds is tattered and smells of mold, but it’s better than braving the night’s chill in just her soaked sweater. “Alright, I want out of this place like yesterday.”
Bryce picks up his lantern and nods, following her out onto the shore and back onto the path. 
------
“And, I don’t know, he’s also distant with me sometimes, ya know? He’s hot, then he’s cold. He’ll flirt with me and agree to a date, but then he bails at the last second.”
“I get you.”
“That’s why I’m coming to you, oh wise one,” Bryce says with a grin. “Teach me your ways of dealing with difficult guys.”
Sloane laughs, the sound echoing through the quiet forest. Tucking the blanket tighter around her shoulders, she shakes her head. 
“Trust me, if I knew how to, I wouldn’t have such problems with my own.”
The cell phone in her pocket burns at the reminder of Ethan -- not that she could contact him if she wanted, given that the freezing water had zapped the last of its battery. 
“Yeah, but you could at least give me some pointers on how to wear him down.”
“Oh, my god, Bryce--”
“Okay, okay, not… ‘wear him down’... more, like, encouraging than that, I guess....” he trails off with a shrug. 
Humming as she thinks over her plan of attack, Sloane slows her pace to drop behind Bryce to skirt around a fallen tree -- until she can see it no more. “Fuck!” Bryce curses from in front of her, rattling the lantern as if abuse will bring it back to life. “Batteries must be dead. Let me…” There’s a rustling of clothes, a brief, hopeful inhale, then: “Fuck. Phone’s dead too. Must be the cold or something.” 
Sloane closes her eyes and opens them again, hoping that they will have miraculously adjusted to the dark -- but no such luck. With what little moonlight seeps through the canopy and the dusting of fog that’s rolled in, it’s hard to see farther than a few feet ahead. It will make this slow-going trek of theirs even slower. She scans the woods surrounding them and stops when she sees a pinprick of light back down the trail.
“I have an idea,” she says, “but you’re not going to like it.”
He does not, in fact, like her idea. But even he can’t argue against it. Besides, they’d only made it about a half-mile up the path, and the boathouse wasn’t that far back. 
Which is how Sloane comes to be sitting on the log, trying her best to ignore the darkness pressing in on her from all sides. If Aurora were here, she would be explaining that being afraid of the dark is just a concept carried over from early hominid days. Then again, if Aurora were here, she wouldn’t have had to send Bryce back for the other lantern, and they’d be back at the house by now. Sloane knows she should keep moving to stay warm, but she’s cold and wet and her knee is throbbing something awful. 
She’s uncertain of how much time passes before that silly bundle of nerves in her stomach morphs into the proper weight of worry. Bryce should be back by now. She knows he made it to the boathouse because the light through the trees is gone now. Her eyes have since adjusted to the night, which means it’s been at least thirty minutes. Maybe that lantern died, too, she reasons. Sloane listens for his familiar cursing, or his footsteps on the path -- but there’s nothing. The nighttime noises of the forest are gone: no animals, no birds, no wind. The stillness is nothing short of eerie, especially when she feels that now-familiar sensation of being watched.   
“Bryce?” she chances. 
From out of the black, she can hear someone walking down the path.  
“Bryce!” she shouts, struggling to her feet. “Sienna? Aurora? Is that you?” 
Whoever it is doesn’t respond. She starts down the trail towards them, cursing when she nearly trips over a rock. “Seriously, guys, I’m not in the mood--”
An awful sound echoes out of the dark, like a high-pitched whistle played over radio static. 
She freezes, pebbles and twigs skidding across the dirt at her sudden halt. Every hair on her body stands on-end, her muscles locked as adrenaline races through her. Sloane swallows and clenches her blanket tighter.  
The high-low tone of the whistle sounds again. Whatever’s out there is just beyond the reach of her vision. Sloane wheels around, her gaze darting across the shadows, as if she’ll be able to even see-- a light. It’s several hundred feet out in the forest, back in the direction of the house. It’s too far away to make out who’s holding it. It has to be Bryce, though -- playing a prank on her, as if she’d find this sort of thing funny in the state she’s in. 
She bites back a curse and hurries after him as best she can, keeping low to the ground in an effort to hide from whatever animal is out here with them. The trail becomes rougher, more overgrown as she trudges through the leaves and shoves away sticker bushes. Forced to waste precious time watching where she’s going, she glances up only to keep track of the light that grows closer every second. 
The whistle comes again -- louder, closer now. Whatever it is, it’s still following her. Sloane pushes through a thicket and stumbles into a clearing. Tucked between a small grove of pines in the center is a cabin. With the caved-in roof, sagging porch, and front steps that form nothing more than a woodpile, it’s obvious the place has long stood abandoned. Sitting on the porch and casting a glow into the open doorway is a lantern -- the same make as the others. Approaching the steps, she slowly leans up and snatches the lantern from the porch.  
“No fucking way,” she mutters to herself. “I don’t care if it is a bobcat out here, I’m not hiding in the Evil-Dead-looking-ass cabin.” 
The dark silhouettes of the trees rustle under the cold wind that blows through the glade. Carried with it is a different sound: voices, all slurred together, but forming one syllable. She steps away from the cabin and back towards the forest, straining to make it out. Her name, she realizes with relief. They’re calling her name.        
She sucks in a breath to yell back when movement catches her eye. Something dark curls away from the tree line, only to dart into the tall grass when she swings the lantern in its direction. Sloane squints at the underbrush it disappeared into, waiting for it to appear again. For a few, blessed moments, she thinks it’s run off, that it’s finally given up.   
Until a black shadow crawls out of the underbrush towards her, shrieking, braying like an animal in pain. It’s an ear-splitting cry, echoing across the clearing. Sloane tightens her grip on the lantern and bolts. Ducking back into the trees, she heads in a single direction, knowing that she’ll either hit the lake or the house -- of, if she runs far enough, the town. 
Shoving through low-hanging branches, she glances over her shoulder to see the shadow chasing her, peeling itself out of the shadows as it moves between the trees, somehow darker than the black surrounding them. Her foot hits a patch of wet leaves and she slips, skidding down the hillside and tumbling out onto a stretch of asphalt. She grits her teeth against the pain in her leg and crawls forward into the middle of the road. With no time for hesitating, she pushes to her feet and runs, hoping she’s picked the right direction. 
It wails again, in the trees to her left, scurrying across the hillside after her.   
“Fuck off!” she screams.
Another noise comes roaring out of the dark, drowning out her cry. Lights -- searing, blinding -- swing around the curve. Brakes squeal as the car swerves, narrowly missing her; glass shatters as Sloane staggers to the roadside, her lantern cracking as it hits the pavement and rolls off into the grass. The guard rail is like ice beneath her palm where she clutches it, using it to stay upright as her heart threatens to vacate her body through her throat. The hillside is drenched in red from the car’s tail lights. 
“Sloane!” 
Ethan -- it’s him, his car, he’s here, but he should be in Boston, shouldn’t he? He was when he texted her and that was only an hour ago so why is he here and how did he-- all of her panicked thoughts cease when he folds her into his arms and hugs her tight. The night around them is still, save for the purr of the engine and the soft dinging of the door ajar warning. 
“What the hell were you thinking, standing in the middle of the road like that?” he hisses, pulling her back to pin her down with his glare. “You could’ve-- I could’ve killed you.”
“You’re here,” she whispers. 
Her lips are numb from the cold and shock. She reaches up for the blanket, then realizes that she must’ve lost it somewhere along the way.
“Of course I’m here. You really need to stop scaring the hell out of me, you know that.” His brow furrows as he frowns, taking in the state of her. He slips off his own coat and bundles it around her. “Honey, you’re freezing. Let me--”
“We have to go,” she urges, remembering what’s waiting for her, out in the forest. Grabbing hold of his hand, she starts tugging him towards the car. “There’s -- in the woods, there was -- I don’t know, this thing, and it kept screaming, it was horrible--”
Ethan shushes her rambling and guides her into the car, buckling her seatbelt when her hands won’t stop shaking. She tucks her nose into the collar of his coat, breathing in the comforting scent of his cologne. Sliding into the driver’s seat, he backs the car up and turns back towards the estate. With one hand on the wheel, the other finds hers and holds tight. 
“Your friends called me when they couldn’t find you, wanted to know if I’d heard from you, in case you’d made it to somewhere with a working phone. I called you-- well, more than I’d care to admit, though it was obvious your phone was dead.” 
“How did you get here so fast?” she wonders aloud. 
“I got here around twelve-thirty, did a sweep of the woods. Around one I started driving around, hoping that I’d come across you in case you made it to the road.” He gives her a worried glance before returning to the road. “The others have been out with the sheriff’s office and the owners, searching the woods.” 
“But I… that doesn’t make any sense,” she tells him with a shake of her head. “It wasn’t even midnight when me and Bryce started back, and he was gone for twenty, maybe thirty minutes. And then I saw him-- well, not him, but at the time I thought it was him being an asshole-- and then that… thing chased after me and I got turned around, sure. But it couldn’t have been more than an hour.”
“Sloane, it’s nearly three in the morning.”
Her immediate reaction is to protest, but the concern in his tone and the clock on his dash render her mute. Which is for the best, she realizes later after pulling up to the house and seeing the driveway choked with cars: Bryce’s, the Bell’s, and several police cruisers. Modern floodlights tucked below the eaves turn the dark house into a bright beacon. Blue and red lights of the cruisers swirl across the lawn. As soon as they pull up, her friends race over to the car and wrap her into a hug. One of the cops takes her statement, ignoring Ethan’s insistence about getting her home and taking it over the phone instead. 
“Must’ve been a coyote,” the cop tells her after she’s finished. “We get a lot of reports of them out here, being so close to the state park.”
“A coyote,” Sloane repeats. 
“Well, sure,” he says with a shrug. “Unless you think it was something else?” 
She doesn’t have an answer for that. Having dealt with her fair share of wildlife coming down from the mountains and into her backyard growing up, she can’t remember ever hearing anything similar. Even her grandfather’s tales about the Wampus cat, her favorite spooky story as a kid, didn’t hold a candle to… to whatever was out there. 
After the cops leave and the Bells lock up, her friends pile into Bryce’s car for the ride home. Though not before Bryce shares with her his own experience with the mysterious shadow. However, he’d gotten a good look with the lantern. 
“It wasn’t an animal,” he whispers to her. “It was her. It was Maggie, I swear it.” 
Sloane didn’t know what to say to that. So she hadn’t said anything, just squeezed his hand and hugged him goodbye. Returning to Ethan’s car, she settled into the passenger seat, thankful for the change of clothes he had in the trunk -- and the first aid kit, of course.  
With the classical music floating out of the speakers and the warmth of his hand in hers again, it would’ve been easy for Sloane to close her eyes. She can’t help it, though, when they back out of the drive. She looks up to the long row of windows. It could be a trick of the headlights, but something watches them from around the lace curtains. As they start to pull away, it slinks back into the shadows of the house. 
------   
Author’s notes and what-have-yous: 
The inspiration for the Angler Estate is the abandoned Uplands Mansion in Baltimore, MD. If you like urbex stuff, I highly recommend looking up some videos of it on YouTube. It’s a gorgeous place, despite all the vandalism. The owners’ surname being Bell is a fun nod to the Bell Witch Cave, my state’s claim to supernatural fame. The mention of The Evil Dead cabin is another poke, since the 1981 original was filmed an hour away from where I live. 
The “watch where you step” line is pulled directly from Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. 
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Professor Kuroo Part Three
yes yes, here I am, part three coming in hot hope y’all enjoy  😈 hehe  I’m thinking this is going to be around 6-7 parts so 👀  
💖 J
part one  part two 
~
Kuroo ends up showing up at The Brew too early. Most likely a product of his nerves and the fact that after work he couldn’t get his mind off of whatever was going to happen tonight. He barely touched his dinner—a bad choice, retrospectively, as he sits at the bar sipping on his beer. Calling it ‘sipping’ is being far too generous, he keeps subconsciously ordering another one after he finished so he had something to do besides stew for the 45 minutes before your agreed meeting time.
Kuroo is a regular here, whether it be for the numerous happy hours with colleagues, or just to unwind after a long day, but the bartender can tell something is up. “Date tonight?” He asks casually, looking to help Kuroo loosen up.
Kuroo laughs, “God, I wish.”
When do you do show up—holy fuck, does he wish he’d drunk all the kegs behind the counter. That’s the only way he’d be able to deal with this situation. You’ve changed since work, and damn you to hell, why did you have to wear something that makes you even more jaw-dropping than usual. He didn’t even think that was possible. Making it worse, you don’t seem to particularly notice the intoxicating effect you have on him.
And when your eyes find him seated at the bar, he reflexively orders another beer without breaking eye contact with you. He’s really going to need it. If you notice that he’s quaking in his shoes, you don’t give any indication, which he supposes is a mercy. You stride across the room, heading straight for him and order a drink before greeting him.
He gives you a slow smile that makes your spine straighten, replying, “You look nice.”
Your eyes narrow. “Don’t start with that.”
He shrugs, holding his hands up in a placating manner. “Just a compliment, I know we’re all business tonight.” That sinful smile still on his face keeping you on high alert to keep your pants on tonight.
Once the bartender slides your drink across the bar to you, Kuroo motions to an empty booth on the wall near the back for you two to occupy. You try not to look too relieved that he’s at least being courteous to your privacy. This place is still close to the University, and while you may be able to pass this off as a ‘semi-professional’ meeting, you’d rather not risk it.
Upon sitting down, an awkward silence stretches across the two of you until you say rather bluntly, “Well you invited me here.”
He laughs and throws back at you, “Well, you’re the one who said we should talk. So, I thought you’d start.”
Fucking hell, you can’t help the pace at which your heart is thundering against your chest. Despite having all day to think about how this was going to go down tonight or what you even wanted to say, you had stupidly actively tried to not think about it as it made your palms clammy and like your heart might burst. So, now that you’re actually here, you’re at a loss for words. And really hating how much you would rather focus on Kuroo in this dim lighting and secluded atmosphere, making it rather difficult to breathe.
“I want to make it clear that can’t happen again,” you finally blurt, too many thoughts tumbling through your head at once to pick out a better way to word that.
He just lifts his brows, “You did.”
You suck in a breath, feeling a weight pressing on your chest that behind his teasing demeanor, he actually appears…hurt.
God, do you hate yourself. Hate all of this.
Sighing through your nose, you say a bit quieter, “And…not that it matters but…it wouldn’t be fair to lie and say I don’t wish things were different.”
“It matters,” he murmurs softly.
He keeps his face neutral, but hearing you say that makes all this simultaneously better and worse. Fuck—what he’d give to be here with you, drinking and making you laugh. Not oppressed by this heavy weight that you both find yourselves suffocating. God this fucking sucks. So much so that he lifts a hand and motions for another beer at the bartender. Fuck it to hell, he’s getting drunk at his apartment tonight. Who cares if it’s a Monday?
You watch him carefully. He was here before you got here, so you don’t know how many drinks he’s had. And while you been to plenty department happy hours with him, you’ve never seen him drunk, so you wouldn’t know how many beers it takes.
“I’m sorry Kuroo.” The words feel meaningless.
He’s quiet before replying, “I know.
“I hate to say it, but I think we should discuss a plan for the next couple weeks before the convention.”
“I know,” he repeats. A moment passes before he adds, “And I fucking hate that you’re right.”
The bartender slides Kuroo’s drink to the end of the bar and you take the liberty of getting up to grab it for him with the intention of ordering a non-alcoholic drink for yourself. Kuroo doesn’t say anything as you leave, just watching you quietly, forcing himself to keep his mouth shut about how beautiful you look. There were days in the office he found himself staring at you, entranced by the way you move; how your eyes rove your computer screen and papers strewn across you desk, how your pencil fits in your mouth, how your eyes light up when you figure something out—he’s in so deep.
Even now, with you making suggestions on how you’ll both get by the next few weeks without raising suspicions, he finds himself lost in watching you. The way your hands move when you speak, how your knee is lightly brushing against his under the table, and how you bring the straw of your drink into your mouth to take a sip. He’s just barely comprehending what you’re saying to him.
He can feel his brain getting fuzzier and fuzzier by the second, all those beers finally catching up to him. Fuck—how many did he actually have? He definitely was not planning on getting tipsy tonight, but previous experience makes it obviously clear how his better judgement is rendered useless when you’re around.
You’ve been watching him, noting that his attention is on you, but not what you’re saying. It’s like he’s looking at you in a daze, and if you aren’t mistaken, he looks a bit flushed. It’s an effort to not groan—he’s drunk. Or at least tipsy. And when you’re finally finished laying down your ground rules you ask him exasperated, “Are you going to need help getting home?”
He’s not even in the right mind to be embarrassed. All he can think about is how fucking cute you are, so serious about this, he almost laughs out loud. You love your job so much; he loves that about you and also really fucking hates it.
“Kuroo?” You’re a little worried that he’s been staring at you quietly for a couple minutes after you asked if he needs help getting home. So, you’re going to assume that’s a yes.
Abruptly, he says, “I do…except where do I live?”
You bury your face in your hands. “Jesus fucking christ Kuroo. Please tell me you understood what I was saying earlier.”
He straightens. “Crystal fucking clear,” he drawls, a sly smile stretching across his mouth. “No all nighters, we shouldn’t talk about not work, and we hide our secret forbidden love from the world.”
“Oh lord,” you mutter, trying hard not to find this amusing. You wonder what other ridiculous things are going to come out of his mouth. Setting your elbows on the table you put out a hand. “Give me your wallet, please.”
His eyes widen, spluttering, “I—I didn’t think you were that kind of person!”
You give him a look. “I want your wallet so I can look at your ID and find out where you live, you 6’2” dumbass.” You keep your hand outstretched. “Give.”
He fumbles around in his pocket before extracting a black wallet and handing it over to you. As you open it, he shouts nervously, “Don’t look in the left pocket!” You have to stifle the laugh that is threatening to leave your mouth that you don’t have to look to know what the round thing you’re feeling that is most likely in a square package is.
Instead, you pull out his ID and ask, “Did you drive here?”
“You looking to take me home tonight?” He drawls, wiggling his eyebrows for what you’re sure he thinks is a ‘seductive’ effect.
You smirk. “That’s exactly what I’m aiming to do, now—keys.” He digs around in his pockets some more before locating his keys which you snatch from him as he dangles them from a finger in front of you. Scooting out of the booth, you point at his seat. “Stay.” He gives you a dramatic salute, going stick straight in his seat, clearly trying not to giggle to himself.
Reaching the bar, you ask the bartender, “Hey, how many has he had tonight?”
The man peers around your shoulder at Kuroo and frowns. “Not enough to get him drunk.”
You groan. Maybe he had some before showing up. You hand a card over to close the bill, wondering how this is how the night turned out.
As per your instruction, Kuroo hasn’t moved since you left and lets out a theatrical breath when you tell him, “Alright, let’s go.” He struggles to get his long legs out of the booth and under him, enough that for a moment you think he’s going to topple over on you, so you offer him your shoulder for support.
His warmth and sturdiness overwhelms your thoughts as you help him towards the door. Once you’re outside, you begin pressing the unlock button on his keys looking for the car flashing its headlights. Locating it, you both hobble over to it—his height and build completely dwarfing you. He’s able to get himself into the passenger seat, even though his legs squish up against the dashboard.  
“How do you fit in this thing?” You scoff, adjusting the seat all the way back, his legs still barely fitting.
He laughs. “I don’t!”
“I can see that,” you chuckle, shutting the door for him. Heading over to the driver’s side, you slip into the seat and unsurprisingly have to move the seat up to even reach the pedals.
“Why are you sitting so close?” He observes.
“Because I have to reach the pedals with my normal size legs to drive.”
“I like your normal size legs.” You slide a look over to him and find him looking out the front window absentmindedly, like he didn’t just confess that he likes your legs. “What about mine? Do you like my giant ones? They’re very handy, y’know, getting places.”
You type his address into your GPS and find that he doesn’t live very far. Pulling away from the curb, you bite your lip as he waits for an answer. You don’t feel like admitting to him that yes—days he wears those sleek black slacks that are fitted just right, you nearly hyperventilate. So instead you go for a non-committal, “Sure.”
He grins and mocks, “Sure.” Then pins you with a stare. “I’ve caught you staring at this sweet ass so don’t go thinking I bought that flimsy ‘sure’.” He laughs again and you nearly drive the car into a streetlamp at his words.
You can’t stop the heat crawling up your neck. “Yeah well, don’t think I haven’t caught you staring too, so I guess we’re both screwed.” You retort, attempting to focus on the road and not his golden eyes boring into you from the passenger seat.
“Screwed,” he snorts. “That’s what I’d like to—,”
“Don’t. I swear to god Kuroo—do not.”
You know he’s just lost his inhibitions. Even if what he’s saying is truly on his mind and what he wants. And while this whole situation is laughable, you are scared of the rumors that could come out of it. You have no idea who saw you at the bar, who saw you leave with Kuroo—you could very well be jeopardizing everything right now without even knowing it.
Retrospectively, you could have just called him a cab.
He pouts. Then hits the nail right on the head. “You’re not fooling anybody. I mean, you don’t have to do this, taking me home where who knows what will—oh shit!”
You slam on the brakes once you pull into a parking spot in his buildings lot, causing him to lurch forward and slam back into his seat, his eyes wide with shock. Unbuckling yourself, you glare at him, saying firmly, “Nothing is going to happen. I’m taking you home because I’m a good person and you’re drunk and will probably pass out the second you get into bed. So, unbuckle yourself and let’s go.”
You shove your door open and stalk over to the passenger side where he’s unfolding himself out of the car. Taking his elbow, you help him into the building, and he manages to at least remember the floor and unit he lives in. Jabbing the button in the elevator, you can feel that he’s looking at you.
“Why are so you angry?”
You sigh, forcing yourself to take a breath. “I’m—I’m not. I’m just frustrated.”
He nods slow and solemnly, a little too slow for you to believe he’s regained his senses. “You wish you were coming to my apartment for a different reason, I know I do.” You can’t bear to look at him. This is all so wrong in so many ways.  And you can’t find any words to respond to him either. He takes your silence as an agreement to his statement, and when the elevator dings, he plants his feet and declares, “I have an idea!” You just hum in acknowledgement. “Let’s just stay in here and pretend like the outside world doesn’t exist because the outside world is mean, and I don’t like it anymore.”
That gets a full laugh out of you, and he’s grateful that he’s finally made you laugh, seemingly brightening up his entire world with your beaming smile. Taking his arm yet again, you attempt to pull him from the elevator saying through a chuckle, “I don’t think you’ve thought that plan through Kuroo.”
“What do you mean? It’s foolproof.”
Your attempts to pull him from the elevator are useless, he far bigger and stronger than you, and the only way you’re going to get him to move is to convince him. No amount of force you can produce will budge him. You decide to humor him. “What will it take for you to abandon this plan?”
“Make me a hot pocket.” A grin lifts your lips at his request. That’s all? Then quickly he tacks on, “And a hug!”
It’s innocent enough so you agree, finally getting him to exit the elevator and head down the hallway. You have to try several keys on his key chain before you find the right one and usher him into his apartment. “Sit,” you instruct, pushing him towards the couch while you go located his hot pocket. He flops himself down onto the sofa, stretching his arms out on the back of it and leaning his head back to close his eyes.
After heating up the hot pocket, you fill a glass of water and set both on the coffee table in front of him.
You’ve never seen a man eat a hot pocket so fast in your entire life. You force him to drink the entire glass of water and fill it up 2 more times before he groans that he’s going to burst if he drinks anymore. So, you make him drink one more for good measure. He complains throughout the ordeal, but you’re sure he’ll be grateful tomorrow morning when he doesn’t wake up with a hangover.
He stands abruptly and you immediately throw your hands out to catch him in case he topples over, but he’s steady and pinning you with an intense stare. “Time to follow up on the second part of the deal,” he declares, opening his arms wide, an alarmingly serious expression on his face. “It better be a good one!”
You smile softly to yourself, getting to your feet from your seat on the coffee table. Stepping closer to him, you reach up to wrap your arms around his neck, standing on your tiptoes. He hunches ever so slightly, folding you in his embrace, and pulling you flush against his body. His head lowers to rest on your shoulder, his dark mess of hair tickling your neck and the scent of his cologne and body wash overwhelming your senses. This feels so right and the world is cruel for making you endure it.
“New plan,” he murmurs against your neck, sending goosebumps prickling over your arms. “We stay like this.”
You huff out a laugh, greedily allowing yourself to bury your face into his shoulder. “Can’t.” He sags against you, clearly disappointed by that answer. Even more disappointed when you release his neck and step out of his arms, muttering, “I think I should leave now, and you should go to sleep.”
Distantly he answers, “Yeah.” Then turns to head down the hallway towards his bedroom.
“Kuroo?”
“Hm?”
He looks over his shoulder to find you standing in his living room, looking like you’re on the brink of throwing all caution to the wind and following him.
“Goodnight,” you say instead. 
He smiles as best he can. “Goodnight.”
And once the door to his bedroom is shut, you quietly slip out the front door and sag against it when it closes.
That didn’t help things at all.
~
part four
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joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh · 4 years
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My Top 10 Anime of 2019
Another year of anime’s over, and before I get my picks for Top X of the decade or whatever, I think 2019 deserves its own wrap up too. It’s worth mentioning that because a certain 2 shows’ last episodes got delayed, my Fall 2019 Season in Review isn’t out yet, but shows from Fall are obviously eligible and you’ll hear perhaps fuller opinions on any of my Fall shows that are in this list if you read that post when it comes out, and also you can read my other Seasons in Review this year for fuller thoughts on the other shit. For now though, we’re talking about this. And semi-coincidentally, today, the 5th of January, is the same date that I posted my Top 10 of 2018 when that happened. So hey, that’s pretty cool. Not only that, but actually coincidentally, I watched 40 shows this year, exactly the same amount as last year, albeit this year I dropped 7 as opposed to 14, so that’s 33 shows that are viable for this list, minus the 2 that haven’t finished for 31, though those 2 definitely weren’t fucking making it lol. So let’s uh, let’s get going.
10. Sarazanmai
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Starting off we’ve already got a really weird, unconventional show, but one that really sort of stuck itself in the back of my mind as the year went on. Despite airing a mere 11 episodes way back in Spring I’ve managed to not really forget about this one, the catchy music and jingles, the extremely bizarre presentation of a fairly simple narrative with an interesting overarching theme, and really great character writing all around. The show definitely explores its 3 main leads in great depth and covers their relationships with themselves and the people in their lives in even greater depth, resulting in some surprisingly emotional highs for a show where the first 5 episodes are more or less identical. I don’t want to be the guy that sells a show on “weird” but it for sure has quite a lot more going on than the surface level that I can’t say I fully understood, but that surface level is god damn enjoyable and hey it’s always nice to have more going on than the surface. Good time.
9. Dumbbell Nan Kilo Moteru?
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So this year’s a hell of a change of pace from my favourites last year in that this show right here is one of only two cute girls doing cute things shows on this list. Ain’t that fucking weird? But yeah, cute girls do workouts and muscle building at the gym. And it’s a great time! The girls are really adorable, it’s got maybe the best male characters in any cute girl anime I can think of, the humour’s on point for basically the entire show, it’s legitimately educational without being massively distracting, and it’s unabashedly horny because yeah, muscle girls are hot, Doga Kobo aren’t afraid to show that. And it also feels so weird to say it, but main character Sakura Hibiki, yeah her seiyuu’s performance is one of the best of this year, which is so not what you expect to hear about a cute girl gag comedy thing. Fuckin, great time.
8. Re:Stage! Dream Days
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I feel like I’m the only person in the world with this in their top 10, my god. I’m sure some people have checked out and dismissed me as an idiot because of this pick alone lol. But it’s a really fun show! It’s a show where I struggle to tell like, how self-aware the writers were, because the show’s often a genuinely stupid dumb idol show with silly stock characters that just get up to cute moeshit, but then the humour’s mostly kind of like, “god these moeshits sure do dumb shit or are smart in really dumb unrealistic ways that impress everyone” and it feels like the writers know what’s up, but not in a way where it’s just like “haha shoulder nudge” type thing. I don’t know what this show is other than adorable and cute and I really like it and I don’t know if it’s an ironic thing because I tend not to enjoy things “ironically” so if it is ironic then like I don’t know how to deal with it? Show’s a great time, best worst idol show I’ve ever seen.
7. Carole & Tuesday
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This is a show I know will be topping a lot of people’s lists, and though it didn’t touch me quite like it touched many others, I still really loved it. The titular duo are probably the second or maybe third most enjoyable pair of characters this year, and seeing them go through their story of trying to enter into the music industry because they have something to say, things that tie into their respective backstories, things that have a meaningful impact on the society the story’s set in, it’s great. It’s a 5 minutes in the future type story, and yet with how much of the story is truly about music, more than any other show I’ve ever seen, it feels like a story that’ll be considered timeless. I sure as hell enjoyed it, and I’m not even that into music. I think it does have a problem with its pacing, the second half in particular wastes a lot of time on pointless characters and sideplots that go nowhere meaningful, but it’s a fairly minor thing in an otherwise enjoyable show with mostly memorable and super distinct characters, and a satisfying ending. Love it.
6. Dororo
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I didn’t expect to like this show even close to as much as I did. Which is weird, because it sounds so fucking cool. A feudal lord gives up his son’s entire body for the prosperity of his land, resulting in a kingdom built on the sacrifice of one innocent baby, and now the baby, with no eyes, nose, mouth, arms, legs, skin, etc, grows up to be a warrior who wants revenge, and can get his body parts back by slaying demons? Also his arms are swords? That’s fucking badass, and a great lens to talk about utilitarianism and hedonism as concepts. Is it right to sacrifice one for the sake of thousands, or was that one wronged, and has every right to get what was stolen from him at the cost of those same thousands? And with almost every key player in this conflict being part of this one family, including particularly an awesome younger brother whose negative character arc as a result of his pursuit of one answer is, it’s just fucking god tier. Also, despite the visuals faltering quite a lot during the last third of the show (though thankfully the finale still looked awesome) the show has brilliant art design, it’s got a very old Japanese feel to it, and the washed out colours fit the sort of nihilistic feel to the show. It’s a phenomenal show and the fact that it’s not top 5 speaks to the quality of the shows coming up more than anything else.
5. Given
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I definitely didn’t expect to like this show as much as I did. A boy’s love show being not just something I love, but in my top 5 for the year? Beating out Dororo and Carole & Tuesday even? Sounds fake honestly. But this show’s just, just brilliant. It’s closer to a slice of life with a male cast than it is anything BL tbh, though there’s still BL, gay kisses on the lips, characters talking about very homosexual feelings, thinking very homosexual things, you know, but by and large it’s like, almost iyashikei? The show’s very, warm. The colour palettes are warm. The characters are comforting, even when it gets pretty heavy with mentions of suicide and characters kind of fighting, there’s still sort of a sense that everything’ll be okay. The show doesn’t even look especially good and yet it feels like something from Kyoto Animation, albeit with less cute girls. Instead, we’ve got cute boys. And I think it’s all really well written, having seen a fair amount of anime where “gay anime boys” just means “overly affectionate anime girls, but with dicks”, I really appreciate that Given feels like it stars a cast of actual boys. And men even, because Given also has 2 college aged characters in it that, although they don’t quite get their resolutions, we’ve got a movie coming up for that though, they’re still nicely developed and feel like comparatively matured personalities that really add to the narrative. Also this is the only show on this list that I’ve rewatched, and it was even better when I did that so. Shockingly fantastic time.
4. Vinland Saga
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Yet another show that’ll probably be tons of peoples’ favourites, and like the other show that’s got the second or third most enjoyable duo of characters in the form of Askeladd and Thorfinn, Vinland Saga’s yet another show that, surprise surprise, is fucking brilliant! Also I feel like it might be a solid gateway anime, it’s got that sort of brilliant character writing, longform storytelling and steady plot progression, and of course, badass action, that hooks you in really damn well. Plus in its prime it’s one of the prettiest shows this year, the animation especially is probably top 3, and the voice acting is close to the best this year. I should probably rewatch this since it’s fairly heavy on the politics and watching it week by week, sometimes less frequently than that, I didn’t feel 100% in the know all the time, but that’s just me, show’s great, when it comes to every show I talk about in this post you should probably read my tag for them since I’ve covered like every episode of all of these shows in greater depth so.
3. Dr. Stone
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Never thought I’d see the day where a Weekly Shounen Jump title would be in my top 3 of a year, let alone the first 9/10 show for me in this list. But Dr Stone’s just such a fantastic time. I’ve talked about this show a lot, and every time I’m selling the key appeal on the show, I’m saying the main thing. Dr Stone operates on 10 billion % gratification all. The. Time. The characters are always working towards something that takes multiple episodes to achieve and the payoff is always super satisfying, but the steady sense of progression is enhanced by the fact that they’re always making things with multiple purposes. So if they want to make a phone, well they’re gonna need to have light, so they need copper wire for lightbulbs, so they need to be able to string copper wire, so they make a cotton candy machine to refine the stringing process, and in making cotton candy they can basically pay villagers to do labour for them, and try to persuade an enemy spy to maybe shift their allegiance a bit. Every single thing has multiple steps and every single step is a satisfying journey that goes towards solving so many more problems than initially presented. That specific way of providing narrative payoff is unparalleled in just how gratifying it is, the show’s incredible at just letting you have fun with it. Helps that the characters are as fun as they are too, main character Senku is a male genius main character but isn’t a toxic cynical cunt that you just want to kill, he’s got a bit of sass but he’s a genuinely nice person who seriously wants to save everyone and isn’t afraid to work admit that. The fact that this isn’t anime of the year is amazing, that’s how great the next 2 shows are.
2. Beastars
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What’s more surprising than Shounen Jump being in my top 3? How about the furry anime being my second favourite of the year? Yeah Beastars is fucking ridiculously good, I really don’t want to say too much because my Season in Review for Fall isn’t out yet and I’ve gone in mad depth to Beastars specifically in there which you should read if you care, but TL;DR the character writing is near unparalleled in any show I’ve seen, let alone this year, and specifically the society that the characters live in and the way it impacts them and they impact it, it’s all ridiculously interesting, and if I had to use one adjective to describe how this show explores every opportunity its story and setting present, I’d choose “thorough”. It’s also crazy unpredictable in the wildest ways because so many things happen that you couldn’t possibly expect and yet every single one of them is so easy to immediately accept because just, fuck, this show’s so believable. This fucking edgy Zootopia is one of the smartest shows I’ve ever seen and I’d recommend it to uhhhh anyone.
1. Mob Psycho 100 II
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Is it any wonder that the only show this year I gave a 10/10 is my favourite anime of the year lol
And that’s 2019 in TV anime. Fuck movies lol most of them that I want to watch aren’t even out yet. This year was fucking great, yo. I gave one show a 9/10 last year, everything else was 8 or less, but here we have two 9s and miraculously, even a 10. That’s awesome. This year was fucking great. And it’s such a weird list for me because it’s dominated by like, the type of shows r/anime love, as opposed to overwhelming cute girl bullshit like one might expect of me. Hey this is fine though. No idea how proud I am of this post’s writing since I can’t be bothered proofreading it, really I just wanted to make that January 5th date to match last year’s, but I have talked about all of these shows in other places, or will talk more about in the case of Beastars, so like, whatever. If you’re curious about some other random numbers, this top 10 has 2 shows from Winter, 2 shows from Spring, 1 show from Fall, and all of the remaining 5 are from Summer, so uh, I think it’s an easy guess which season was my favourite overall. That’s basically it, but let’s do like 3 more segments just to cover all bases.
Favourite Movie of the Year – Black Fox
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I have a review of this, go read it, but TL;DR really fun action movie from one of my favourite studios, with brilliant animation, great character designs, and a plot that, though extremely simple and predictable, is a ton of fun regardless.
Girl of the Year – Miyako Hoshino
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This was ridiculously hard to decide but honestly Mya-nee is such a brilliant meme character that I’ll never forget about that I can’t help but pick her. Yeah she’s uhhhhhhhh absurdly creepy in and out of universe, I don’t wanna say the p word in case Tumblr gets mad at me but she sure as shit seems to be that and uh, nah, but hey it’s all fictional so who cares. Funny, also the show’s got a cute art style so Mya-nee’s legit cute and that’s pretty cool. Also she’s voiced by Reina Ueda which fucks with me hard. Also I joked about kinning her for a while so there’s that. She has a lot of strong competitors from this year, even excluding girls I was already attached to by virtue of being from sequels or spinoffs or stuff, but I think I’ve got to give it to her. Plus it’s an excuse to get funny meme show Wataten in this list somehow
Boy of the Year – Crippled Kirito
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nah jk
Boy of the Year – Shigeo “Mob” Kageyama
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Fr tho his one was also ridiculously hard, perhaps even harder than best girl, which fucks with me because last year best boy was pretty easy and best girl felt like I was choosing a favourite child, but whatever. But like, argh, as tough as it is, it’s gotta be Mob. My boy matured so much in his second season, made me shed so many tears. The first episode of season 2 alone just shows us how far Mob’s come since his humble beginnings in season 1, and even further since he was a shy little child afraid of everything. Argh, he’s so cute too! Mob is an inspiration to us all, let us all be more like Mob.
And yeah that’s actually us done. Cool year.
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voidselfshipp · 3 years
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Stay.
(Ok to rb)
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Octane tapped his foot on the carpet waiting for his taxi to arrive.
The rest legends left half an hour ago and he was stuck in his dads party.
This was defenetly not his style, sure he was all about getting recognized and have fans around him, but not this kind,
He hunched and crossed his arms when finally his taxi arrived,he hopped in almost immediatly and grabbed his phone.
Jerico got a text suddenly as she layed in bed,the LED lights bounced off her skin as she saw a movie, she was laughing when she saw the Text.
Her smile turned into frown.
"Can I crash at your place?"
"Yeah...what happened?"
Octane types out the answer but deletes it "ill tell you when I get there,be there in 10"
He first went to pick up some food,almost getting stopped by a fan but avoiding them by a split second.
He then went to jericos home.
A knock interrupted the tombstone silence in jeris house,jer opened the door,and there he was.
The taxi left behind them as tav only sighed--Hey...--he said.
Octavio hugged her tightly and jerico hugged back.
He enters the house closing the door behind him and locking it.
Both sit on the couch and take out the food from the bags.
Octane took his mask and Goggles off, and sighed-- I was at my dads party--he said, and proceeded to tell her everything that went down.
Jeri listened with a heavy heart, and hugged him tightly when he finished--i I hate being near my parents, I hate going to their parties..
--Youre always welcomed to stay--jer added caressing his cheek.
Tav leans into her hand and nodds kissing the palm of it as his own hand pressed against jericos.
--Can I stay a couple of days?...I just want to be away from the limelight...and live...calmly here
--yeah, its going to be fun having you around,this house May not be as big ad your mansion but--
He stopped her midsentence cupping her cheeks--its perfect...just like you...
Jer chuckles and kisses him, he kisses back resting his back on the couch.
Her arms go around his waist and he melts in her embrace resting his head on her shoulder.
And slowly they doze off.
--buen día amor.
The smell of food invaded the livingroom,jeri slowly sits on the couch with octane, who hands her a Plate of food and freshly brewed tea.
--Thought youd be drinking coffee
He shrugged and Turned on the TV--i want to calm down so coffee is off the list--he winked at her and she giggled putting her head on his shoulder.
As he flipped through the Channels a news Channel popped up talking about the party octanes dad threw,and an interview with his father came shortly after.
Jeris hand is on the remote and she switches to cartoons.
A smile instantly appears on octavios face and he eats his breakfast.
--Thanks for letting me stay--he said with his mout stuffed with food.
She laughed and kissed his cheek--of course id let you stay,you deserve some peace too you know?
He smiled softly--im so glad to have you in my life...I love you
Jer smiled--me too...
The rest of the day sure was something, filled with music and laughter.
Jeri was cleaning the house as tavi cooked lunch.
She wiped the sweat off her forehead as she finished cleaning and went to the kitchen.
Her arms go around tavs waist, he instantly melts and presses his back against her chest.
She presses soft kisses against his neck--amor im making lunch...
--you love em though
He snorts and nodds--Yeah...anyway its ready lets eat!
Both take the food to the bedroom and watch a movie.
Hearing octanes laughter made jerico happy,he had gone through some stuff and he really did deserve this.
Jeri also fought for the peace she has now, and being able to share it with him, the love of her life was everything shed hoped for.
The movie ended and so after Washing the dishes they went to sleep.
Octane moved his legs and kicked off the blankets,jeri wakes up when she feels him moving around the bed.
--Cant sleep?--She asks.
--si,i cant get my body to stay still!
Jeri chuckled at the irony and so did he--Alright lemme try something--She cleared her throat and caressed his hair--Wanna hear a story?--He nodded like a little kid and she giggled-- a long time ago, in a kingdom long forgotten was a prince, charming and fast, he was very nice and everyone loved him.
One day he scaped to see the market and be amongst commoners in disguise, his eyes fell on a young woman buying food,she was beautiful and had a voice soft as any other.
He approached her, and suddenly someone recognized him as the prince.
The prince freaked out thinking that the woman would be extra nice to him to get something from him as everyone had done in the past.
The woman however kept her tone as it was before and invited the prince to drink tea with her.
And so for the following month hed sneak out to be with his one true love.
One day while holding his hand he asked her, deep un thought"Why didnt you treat me like loyalty when we met?" He said"why do you treat me so well knowing who I am"
The woman laughed softly " i Fell in love with the Man here" she said pressing a hand to his chest"and not by what he had"
The prince then understood and she saw him beyond his status as heir to the throne,she saw him by who he was truly, and loved him for it-- octane smiled kissing her.
--something tells me its you reminding me that you love me for who I am and not a bedtime story
--Mayyyybe...
Octavio snuggled closer to her and fell asleep in her arms.
The weeks went on and on, he had been missing from his social media for months.
One morning jerico was watching the news.
"The famous apex legend Octane has been found missing in his social media for months and his fans are panicked" the reporter said.
--hey amor?--jeri asked as Octavio sat besides her--i think you should tell your fans you okay
Stuffing his face with food he looked at her--Why?
She then signaled at the TV,he read the headline and nodded--oh shit,I should tell em, you want to appear with me?pleease?
She nodded kissing his cheek.
After eating breakfast they went to change and get into semi respectable clothes,just so they wouldnt appear on their cheesy pjs with cute animals and food stamped all over it.
--Hey guys Wassup!--octane said at his phones camera--just popped Back in for a bit to tell y'all ive been alright, just went off the radar for a bit!, but oh oh you wouldnt guess where im staying at!--The camera was at a slight angle so jerico couldnt be seen.
He them moved his phone to show jerico against his chest with a smiles--thats right ive been at my partners house!, isnt she the cutest?--jer hid her face on his chest with baby Pink cheeks muttering a soft "hiii!"--anyway Guys dont worry, as soon as I feel better ill be back!, for now peace!--his hand covered the camera and he stopped recording,uploading it to all his social media and then leaving his phone on the nightstand.
They changed back into their pjs and sat on the bed ready to watch more movies and spend Time togheter
She always made him feel loved and special,and life with her was easier.
When their eyes meet the world seems softer,and now they were in their own world of comfort.
Eventually hed had to return to his life as octane, but right now he was Octavio Silva,a Man who loved being with his partner, and was happy with them.
For once he could be himself,and have someone who loved him for it
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recentanimenews · 3 years
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REVIEW: The Eizouken Live-Action Movie Takes a Hands-Off Approach to the Source Material
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  A note on safety: The following movie review undertook the strictest of safety procedures to watch the anime film in cinemas in Japan, including washing hands with disinfectant before and after, sitting in seats apart from others, going to a cinema outside of the busy metro area, and wearing a mask during the entire runtime of the movie. We strongly urge everyone to follow the recommended safety protocol in your country and always wear a mask when in public — not just for your sake, but everyone else’s as well.
  Let’s talk about faxes.
  I promise that it will make sense soon.
  To this day, faxes are huge in Japan. A lot of people, especially small business owners and freelancers, use them to send out invoices and the like, which must also be stamped with their personal seal known as a hanko. It’s an inescapable part of the giant, slow-to-change bureaucratic machine that permeates everyday life in Japan. Japan’s new administrative reform minister, Taro Kono, recently declared war on hanko and faxes, but it’ll be an uphill battle because Japan is basically the DMV if it became a country, with endless forms, applications, stamps, etc. It would actually be a pretty good topic for a satirical anime or something. But it’s not really the right topic for an Eizouken movie. Yet that’s what Tsutomu Hanabusa's live-action adaptation, which premiered on September 25, is ultimately all about.
  The original Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! manga and anime had a pretty straightforward story: a trio of high school friends start a club to make traditional, hand-drawn anime. There was, of course, much more to it under the surface — like a look at how an artist’s environment influences their work, the very specific details that make anime feel more real, the delicate balance between creativity and realistic time/resource management necessary in any kind of artistic production, etc. The original story admittedly also had its flashier moments, though most of them took place in the imaginations of the three main characters: Midori Asakusa, Sayaka Kanamori, and Tsubame Mizusaki. On the whole, Eizouken is a celebration of the artistic spirit and a goofy, energetic love-letter to an industry that rarely loves animators back with its long hours and creative compromises.
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    The Eizouken live-action movie, on the other hand, has combat scenes, tactical police raids, elaborate battles, and, if I understood it correctly, a typhoon in a box. None of those are from the anime produced by the Eizouken club. They all happen within the movie’s “real” world and their goal is to push forward the idea that bureaucracy is bad.
  Let me explain. In the manga and anime, the Student Council at Asakusa, Kanamori, and Mizusaki’s school was mostly an occasional roadblock they had to overcome to get some money for their club or to screen their finished anime. They did have a more prominently antagonistic role in the Culture Festival episode where they utilized their own security force, but to call them the villains would be really missing the point of the story. So anyway, the Student Council is 100 percent the villain of the Eizouken movie.
  In the live-action film, the Student Council runs the school with its own paramilitary force that they use to enforce the ideas of Total Bureaucracy. They intervene in afterschool activities, merging existing clubs according to their whims, even if it doesn’t make a lick of sense. They can only be fought with signed forms and the like. They hate Eizouken because they represent disorder and because their existence challenges their rule-obsessed … rule. All of this was definitely a small part of the manga and anime but here, it’s been dialed up to 11 and given center stage, all to create an easily-recognizable Big Bad for the Eizouken girls.
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  Image via Amazon Prime
  All of that doesn’t make the movie bad. On its own, it’s a semi-enjoyable story about insane high-school girls so obsessed with their administrative duties that they organize an armed police raid on their friends while yelling: “Don’t let them make that anime!” It’s a bit funny. But it’s not Eizouken.
  An interesting thing about the live-action Eizouken movie is that it was supposed to premiere back in May (but got pushed back because of COVID-19) so it could follow the live-action series that aired before it. The series covers the events from the first chapter/episode up until the Student Council budget review, while the movie cuts down all that story into about 40-45 minutes and fills the rest of its runtime with new footage concluding with the screening of the Robot Club anime. This really hurts the movie because it was written with the assumption that the audiences have all seen the series, so a lot of crucial context is missing. Why do Asakusa, Kanamori, and Mizusaki have a problem with the Student Council? Covered in the series. How did they get their dilapidated clubhouse? Covered in the series. Why is there a cheerleader rebellion happening on the school grounds? Covered in the series.
  If you’ve read the manga or seen the anime you won’t have trouble following it, although you probably will have trouble recognizing your favorite characters. Literally, the entire main cast is wrong. You remember how Mizusaki could flawlessly switch between her geek and model persona? Well, now she gets a bit flustered when people ask for her autograph. Also, there are no traces of the detailed-obsessed aspiring animator left in her (the film as a whole focuses very little on the actual act of making anime which is definitely ... a choice.) She’s not annoying or a bad influence. It’s not a terrible direction. It's just different. In the movie, Kanamori has exactly one scene where she can demonstrate her producer and money-and-resource-procuring skills and it happens off-screen. The rest of the time, she mainly yells at Asakusa and Mizusaki for not focusing. She did get a few more character-building scenes in the TV series but movies are meant to be as self-contained as possible so it would have been nice to see that here.
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  Image via Amazon Prime
  Asakusa is probably the worst. In the manga and anime, she was an adventurer, a dreamer, a hard worker, a fully-rounded person. She had trouble with crowds or public speaking but she was brave in other areas, and she knew exactly what she wanted. The live-action Asakusa has a violent physical reaction when strangers talk to her. She also cries A LOT. She constantly has the look of a lost kitten about her, afraid of the world and what it might do to her. The animated/drawn Asakusa loved the world. She was fascinated and inspired by it to create anime. The live-action Asakusa does design to escape the real world because it scares her. Maybe this type of character could’ve worked in another series, but this just doesn't feel like Eizouken.
  A lot of the choices in the movie are weird like that. The recap of the TV series happens in the form of a parody of samurai movies like Rashomon. There’s another parody of a Japanese variety show after that. A few American movie spoofs are also thrown in later. That’s possibly a commentary on modern entertainment, which would make sense in a story titled Eizouken (lit. “motion picture studies”), but the point of the anime and manga is that these girls aren’t making or studying general “motion pictures.” They make anime. Hand-drawn anime. They hammer in the difference between regular cinema and anime a lot. It’s one of the themes of Eizouken. But not in the live-action film, because, apparently, when the screenwriter read the name Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken, they took it as a suggestion to stay as far away from the source material as possible.
  Have you seen the live-action Eizouken movie or TV series? What did you think of them? Let us know in the comment section!
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      Cezary writes words on the internet. You should follow him on Twitter.
  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!
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ill-skillsgard · 5 years
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Ascent - Bill Skarsgård
Title: Ascent
Warning: 18+ voyeurism/masturbation/language
Description:  A collection of scents and scenes strung together by strange sequences of secrecy and surveyance.
A/N: DAMNIT YOU GUYS. This is my 3rd time posting this fic. It will no longer include the image of the sexy Bill look-alike wanking because wE cAn’T hAvE NiCe tHiNgS. Also, please don’t ask me to send the image because I can’t be sure of ages and I won’t be dinged for providing pr0nz to potentially underage people. I’m so sorry. I tried!
ISO: Quiet roommate; preferably female. Males acceptable too if you're cleanly. Split rent loft in quaint & upscale Rosewell neighbourhood with everything included. 1200 upfront first and last and then rent can be negotiated. E-mail. Do not call/text.
I only had 900 dollars on me but I figured if I e-mailed the person that had put out the ad and set up a time to meet the following week then I could earn enough in tips to cover the rest. Easy as that. Breathing became a little less laboured once I sat back on my futon and realized that I wasn't quite as fucked as I initially thought. Then I wondered how in the hell somebody could use the words quaint and upscale to describe the same neighbourhood. Which one was it? Quaint or upscale? How could it be both? All I was sure of was that I had to find a roommate quickly. The new landlord of my apartment building had decided that I had something to do with the junkies shooting up in the storage unit behind the building, as though I had knowledge of it the whole time and failed to make a report of it, therefore, making me part of the problem. But it wasn't just that; this guy was a jackass of ultimate proportions- a seedy little rich momma's boy that had inherited his parents' sense of self-entitlement and strings of real estate offices spanning across the city and surrounding counties. We did not click at all upon first meeting when he made his rounds to see exactly what kind of tenants he would be dealing with. In fact, the moment I opened the door to my apartment and he peered in to see the apparent cluster-bomb that had gone off in my bachelorette pad, he set his sights on destroying me, or at the very least, evicting me. If only I hadn't answered the door in my stained sweatpants and wrinkled t-shirt from a decade ago when my taste in music remained under-developed. If only I hadn't had the day's worth of crusted mascara stuck in the inner corners of my eyes like black boogers. If I had thrown my hair up in a semi-cute messy bun, rolled down the waistband of my stretchy pants and tossed on my only reputable sweater maybe things could have gone differently. But I didn't. Instead, I let him catch a glimpse into the trash-covered world of crooked posters, laundry and pizza boxes. His prissy, Gucci-wearing ass got one whiff of my body odour and my fate was sealed. Whatever though, shit happens. Even if Millennial pretty-boy newbie landlord hated me, I didn't quite hate myself. Sure, I had had better times in my life but there had also been much worse. I was just going through my annual depression when the Summer was long gone and the scent of leaves rotting in the gutters rang in the impending frost. Who wanted to do anything but sit around and play video games or watch TV for six straight hours after work? Certainly not I. I e-mailed the guy living in Rosewell because I had been through that area once or twice and remembered that it was one of the nicer neighbourhoods; its remnants of old city charm and decadent architecture still intact. That's when I gave it a second thought. 1200 for first and last month's rent was not that much, considering the location. My brain caught up with me and I recognized that there would probably be dozens of people replying to the listing and that my chances were diminished to almost nothing. Oh well, I read on and circled more potential ads with the tip of a fresh permanent marker that was starting to give me a headrush. By some grace of luck, I received an e-mail back the next day from the person that had put out the Rosewell advertisement. It dawned on me that I also didn't know whether he or she was a he or a she or a they. It seemed mundane to ask but the person didn't include their name in the reply and their email address was an obscure reference that I wasn't sure I understood. My imagination decided to take a jog and came upon the silly little notion that perhaps this was one of those things when serial killers lure in unsuspecting victims with promises of rent so cheap in a gentle neighbourhood where nobody would think to look for a body. It was classic of me but I couldn't pretend like I wasn't thinking about it. At least death would help put a stopper in my rut. I didn't know what to expect, walking up to the building with a face sectioned off into quadrants- each with their own tiny glass door and artful wrought iron laced balcony. What kind of a person lived inside? Was it a peppy university student with a small dog and a knack for pulling off an active-wear-is-all-I-wear look? Could it be another snotty, uptight rich boy like my fuck-bag of a landlord? Or perhaps it was a nice older lady that fancied her wine and lived in an effortlessly baroque den, lined with books and trinkets from her travels abroad. Either way, I just hoped they approved of me since I had taken the time to shower, put on a bit of makeup and dress like the clothes I owned weren't questionably clean or variably dirty all the time. The door was painted black and nobody could see through the glimmering panels of stained glass that made up an intricate checkerboard of red and blue with two cantaloupe roses coiling up and away from each other, petals agape and ready to fall. I gave the door a good look over with a smug grimace that was just a feint for my awe. The place was definitely too nice for me but I soldiered on and smiled when I heard the door being unlocked. A man opened the door and the scent of wood and something else immediately wafted out like a ghost casually passing by. Not only was he a man, but a looming sculpture dressed in a sagging brown wool sweater that threw me off from my rehearsed speech. He was tall, pale and had such striking eyes behind his glasses that I couldn't quite meet them without feeling some hint of discomfort. It was like somebody had tossed a limp rug on the statue of David the way his knitted sleeves hung loosely around thick veiny wrists. "Hi. Bill," he motioned to himself. "Won't you come in?" "Um, yeah. Sure." The mud room was painted in tarnished blood orange and was home to a wooden rack full of men's shoes. There were trainers with hints of dirt on the toes and soles, leather dress shoes with the fancy gold buckles on the front, more dress shoes, stylish suede ankle boots, and beaver fur lined moccasins. I could taste the transition from the cool Autumn air to the musky inside of the home. The floors were all wood, the banister leading upstairs was carved from another expensive type of tree and the shelving units were solid oak stretching from floor to high ceiling. Every wall was home to some kind of meticulously placed decorative object. But there were also family photos to lend the place a warm and happy glow. Or it could have just been how the sun shone through the clear bay windows. I was led through the house, past a large cupboard tucked beneath the staircase and a small writing desk that was home to a  vintage typewriter cased in filigrees of polished silver. It was then I noticed all the framed book pages lining the walls. We entered a kitchen and I was blown away by how roomy it was compared to the tight, warm front that made up the mudroom and what I had determined was a living room that had been converted into a reading room. There was no TV but there was a chaise lounge with a stack of old books reaching up to a cascading hand-carved armrest. "This is the kitchen. The fridge will be mostly yours. I just use the bottom shelf and the crisper on the left. I just ask that you keep your section clean." "Right," I nodded. "The stove is gas, the fireplace is gas... Everything is gas in here. Um... It gets kind of cold in the winter because the electric baseboards don't really work. If you turn them on it makes the whole place smell like burning sawdust. So... You can use a plug-in heater in your room but... Just wear slippers on the floors." "Oh, okay. Good to know." "Uh... Yeah. The laundry room is through there. I also keep my bike back there. There's another rack mount for a bike if you have one." "No, just my car." "Hmm," Bill pondered with a grimace. I bit my lip and hoped that he wasn't biting his lip from derision. He took in a breath through one of the daintiest noses I had ever seen on a man and adjusted his glasses for a moment before pulling them off completely to wipe the lenses on the hem of his brown knit sweater. "Parking can be kind of a bitch around here," he warned. "Yeah, " I chuckled. "I probably pulled around the block six times before something opened up." "You'll have to get used to that... Or just get a bike like everyone else." With a forced laugh, I attempted to hide the odd sense of shame that he had instilled by suggesting that nobody around these parts bothered with silly things like motor vehicles. Fuck, that could mean he was some sort of health nut that would turn his nose up if he saw the types of meals I made for myself and how lazy I could get. Aside from his alarming curtness, Bill seemed to be calm and easygoing. The house was a wooden ladder of a place; stacked with his worldly possessions and Scandinavian accouterments. It was easy to conclude that he was a single man that kept to himself and I did my best to show him that I fit into the same category. Although, it seemed as though he had already decided that I was moving in. He referred to everything as his, mine or ours and led me through the rest of the house like both our minds were already made up. "Here's the room. It's right next to mine. You have an en-suite bathroom. Toilet kind of acts up once in a while and the shower drain is prone to clogging but it's all easy fixes. Oh... And the walls are kind of thin. I ask that if you have guests over in the evening to keep the socializing downstairs. I suppose I can't really stop you from having people in your room but... I do enjoy my quiet." "That's okay. I don't really hang out with too many people," I said. Bill strolled into the center of the empty room, the soles of his shoes hitting the floor echoed off the bright white walls. He had his hands shoved into the pockets of his trousers as he spun on a heel to face me. His shoulders drew up to his ears and for the first time, he cracked a smile. It didn't last long and was accompanied by a shrug of closure. "What do you think?" He asked. "It's nice. I like it. A lot. It's very... Homey." Bill nodded, "yes. So will you take it?" "Uh... You don't have any questions for me? Or anyone else to show the place to?" His full lips set into another grimace as though my question scratched the scab off of a wound that had yet to close. Swallowing hard, I immediately began to regret my inquiry. I should have just been grateful that he saw fit to trust me without so much as delving into my history. "To be frank, I'm not really interested in knowing a lot about you. The less we know about each other, the better. I just need a quiet tenant that won't bother me much and you seem like a sensible woman with your own distractions." "Oh." "I don't mean to sound insensitive." "It's okay. I get it." "You have a job, of course?" "Yes." "Well, that's all I need to know. Just make your rent payments on time and we'll get along." "Not a problem. Sounds good." The entire moving process took a little over a month to complete. I gave my notices where they were due, rented a small truck to pack my things into and drove it across town after handing the keys to the fuck-bag landlord who seemed more than thrilled to watch me departing. Bill had already given me keys to the house and when I arrived the first of the month he was nowhere to be found. Luckily, my possessions didn't extend further than my bed, wardrobe, futon and a couple of side tables that had collected more dust than I thought. After hauling up the ripping black trash bags I had stuffed full of clothes, I tried to decipher a way to get my bed up the winding stairs without scratching the wood or getting myself stuck in a corner. It would have been easier if I had another set of hands and I wanted to clear the halls of all my things before Bill came home and saw the clutter in the front hall. Something told me he was not a fan of mess and I had left a heaving trail all over the mudroom, halls and stairs. With my bed frame already stuck on the first few steps, I decided to sit down and reevaluate my strategy. It was definitely a two-person job that I would not be able to complete on my own. "Fuck, " I cursed as I pulled out my cell phone to make a call to the only person I knew that would be willing to give me a hand; my cousin. On the third ring, I heard the sound of the door opening and footsteps coming through. I was sat on the stairs pouting, my cell clutched to my ear and my breath hitched in my throat.  Bill looked up at me from the first-floor landing through the rails of the staircase and smirked at me. "Need some help?" He asked. I immediately terminated the call to my cousin before he could pick up. Shooting up from the fifth step up, I smoothed out the front of my shirt and tried to make it seem like I wasn't about to burst into tears of frustration. "Um, yes. Sorry. I thought I could do it by myself." "No worries," Bill said as he lifted the edge of the bed frame that was hanging off the first step. We dislodged the frame and slowly carried it upstairs but not without a few grunts of effort and sighs when we finally made it to the top floor. Bill's arms were bulging with the strain and when he helped me gently lay the frame down on the floor I couldn't help but stare at the muscles I never knew he had. We had only had a handful of encounters and each time he had been wearing baggy clothes that veiled the true form of his body. Bill helped me bring everything else I had upstairs and once the last of my belongings arrived he evaluated the mess that I would have to organize myself. Half my clothes were spilling out of bags and my furniture was yet to find a proper place. "Well, I'll leave you to it. Unless you have anything else?" "No. This is it. Thanks for your help." "No problem," he nodded with a small pointed smile that brought out a sweetness in his face before exiting the room. I heard the sounds of his footsteps drumming down the stairs but before I had the chance to get to work unpacking, Bill came back. When I looked up at him he had a peculiar look on his face that I couldn't read. It may have been a cross between uncertainty and embarrassment. "You um... These were on the stairs," he showed me what he had clutched in his hand and the moment I realized that the black material in his hand was a pair of my underwear, I paled. "Oh my god," I laughed uneasily. "I'm so sorry. They must have fallen out when I was dragging the bags up the steps. My panties looked crumpled and insignificant in his large hand as he dangled them between two fingers for me to grab. When I caught them I stuffed them in my pocket immediately and blushed even harder than I had when he had come home to see me flustered on the stairs. "It's all right. Could be worse things to find," he pointed out. "I guess so," I chuckled. Bill smirked at me, eyes darting to the pocket that contained the stray panties and gave me one last glance before leaving me to stew in my mortification. Once I was certain Bill was gone, I took the panties out to evaluate just how embarrassed I should have been. The last thing I needed was for my new roommate to have already discovered a pair of my dirty underwear on the floor. They were generic and made of stretchy faux lace that covered next to no ass cheek but I would have considered them to be a good go-to pair nonetheless. Based on visual inspection and a quick sniff, I was assured that everything checked out and Bill hadn't had the displeasure of picking up a pair of my period panties with the permanent stains in the crotch. If anyone had to have found a pair of my underwear I was glad it was a sexy pair and not ones that I had been hanging onto since high school. But because it was a man that had found them, I felt a strange yearning for approval. I thought about what he could have been thinking about for a long time as I set up my bed and unpacked my necessities. It was going to be weird having a roommate.
~*~
Bill was a strange man. Bill had an office in his room and a writing desk stacked with papers and manuscripts. Bill was a writer. When I asked him if I could read something he had written he said nothing. He only peered at me warily over his wire-framed glasses. We were in the kitchen at the same time and I figured it friendly to strike up a conversation. I had seen all of his papers and looked at all of the stuff he had in the house by then and deduced that he had to have been a writer. All I got from him was a gentle shrug of his stately shoulders and a mumble that I couldn't hear. "You're a writer, aren't you?" I continued. "Yes. I suppose, in a way I am." "Ever had anything published?" Bill rapidly shook his head and muttered, "not here, no. Back home... In university. But not here." The subject of him being a writer seemed touchy so I left my line of questioning at that while I boiled water to make tea. I couldn't help but watch him on the other side of the kitchen preparing his lunch because he was comically lanky yet carried himself with graciousness and poise. His side profile was vexing to me as well. It was then that I realized that Bill was not just commonly handsome, but sculpted in a way that I wasn't used to seeing. With a cute boyish nose and arrestive eyes that shone light green through the lenses of his glasses, I felt that old familiar pang of a crush plunging its way from my chest to my gut and all the way down to my groin. He didn't speak much and I hardly ever saw him because he was always in his room with the door shut. I had a feeling that me bringing up his writing had alarmed him into keeping the door closed at all times. It must have been an adjustment for him to go from living alone to having somebody sleeping in the room right next to him. I tried not to make much of the crush but the times that I did see Bill I always tried to stare for as long as possible. He was a mystery to me; a person living in the very same quarters but with a totally separate life that I had no windows into. Bill had pictures of him and a lot of other people that looked kind of like him so I tried to piece together what his family was like without asking him personally. The family photos were all in chunky brass frames and placed in a strategically sporadic way on the wall shelf. There were many books and three different runs of encyclopedic information stacked side by side with their brightly dyed leather spines displaying a prestigious title and the volume number, but it was the pictures that intrigued me most. By the looks of it, Bill had a lot of brothers and a sister. The longer I analyzed each shelf the more I managed to paint a picture of him for myself based on his belongings. There was a photo of Bill next to some other men of similar heights and facial structures, all dressed warmly and huddled together, each with his own version of a charming smile on. It was amusing to see pictures of him smiling since he had hardly tossed more than a crooked smirk my way. I wasn't sure if Bill was standoffish or if he thought me a slob because of the first day I arrived. The house was cleaner than any place I had ever had by myself and I gathered that he liked to keep it that way. I remembered what it had said in his ad about cleanliness. Maybe I had disgusted him. He had been so sold on having me as his roommate but that was weeks ago and he hadn't tried to engage me much since. It didn't weigh heavily on my mind for long. After all, even though I was the crusty definition of a bachelorette, I could put it together that trying to fuck my roommate that I didn't know was probably a surefire way to complicate things beyond repair. And the place was nice. I wanted to stay and I wanted Bill to like me.
~*~
I walked into his room when I knew for certain that he was gone. I don't know why the sudden urge overtook me and steered me to his bedroom door. I opened it and a waft of his scent came over me. It was like fresh cotton and chopped wood or an old book that had been kept in pristine condition. His writing desk beckoned me so I went without hesitation to cast my eyes over the papers on its surface. There were some printed pages full of words with hand-written notes scribbled in the margins. One of the most eye-catching pieces was a mostly blank white page that had been the last of the bunch to be placed upon the altar of his creative expositions.
I can't get enough of the scent that she left behind.
After reading that one line, I snapped out of my mindless intrusion and left his bedroom at once. Why I had gone in there in the first place was a mystery and I was overcome with guilt that pushed me in the direction of avoidance. I felt somehow he would know that I had gone into his room without permission.
~*~
A man from work had asked me out on a date and I stood in the shower vigorously washing the shampoo out of my hair. I was already late and had to scramble to put together an outfit out of what little clean clothing I had. There had been no time for me to do any laundry so I made do with an old sundress that I had worn the shit out of the Summer before, a pair of black nylon leggings with a hole in the crotch and the only pair of underwear that I could find that wasn't stretched out from me wearing them. I had laid out everything on my bed and bustled around trying to find my good face moisturizer and the only high-end lipstick that I had been coveting for the better part of two years. When I got dressed, I had somehow lost pieces of my attire along the way and rushed around looking for the underwear that I had dubbed acceptable to wear out on a date. My phone went off with a notification from my date saying that he was circling around the block again because he couldn't find a place to park. I quickly messaged him back and told him I would be down in five short minutes. Forgoing the panties, I hiked on my nylons and hoped that the skirt of my dress would manage to cover me enough all night that I didn't accidentally flash my pussy while getting in and out of his car. The date was boring and I didn't find myself connecting with him as we had at work. Maybe it was because we were co-workers or maybe it was because he was smiling too much at me the whole time, but I decided to put an end to the night after a dessert and the last of a bottle of cheap wine. When I got home, I shut the door and pulled my vibrator out of my empty underwear drawer.
~*~
In the morning on one of my days off, I stood in the kitchen making myself a pathetic breakfast of two pieces of toast with a slice of tomato and chunks of a too-ripe avocado splattered between them. First I was focused and calm and then suddenly I felt like something had materialized behind me. When I turned around, I let out a gasp as I noticed Bill standing next to me with no shirt on, his hair a mess and his eyes half-closed. "Sorry," he breathed through his nose. "Need a glass, please." I got out of his way and watched as he opened the cupboard that I had been standing in front of and took out a clean glass to pour water into. My eyes were drawn to the burgeoning of hair from his armpits when he reached to the top shelf. Without saying a word, he filled his glass from the tap and then walked back upstairs casually sipping his water. I don't know how he had managed to sneak up on me without me hearing the floorboards protesting beneath his feet but it had happened and my heart continued to race until I heard him enter his bedroom right above the kitchen.
~*~
I had tossed my laundry into the dryer and let it run while I left for work. When I got home my laundry was all folded and put back in my basket. My jeans and work pants were on the bottom, my shirts the second tier and then several pairs of my panties had been folded neatly in halves and placed on top. "Um... Okay," I whispered to myself, lifting the basket off the dryer that was still rumbling full of Bill's laundry.
~*~
A nap was on the immediate horizon for me when I got home from work. I kicked my shoes off as soon as I got in the door and made right for my bedroom. Bill must not have heard me climbing the stairs as I hadn't heard him come up behind me the week before because his door was open and what I saw halted me in my place and robbed me of the abilities to breath or think. There he was, laying on his bed naked with his right hand wrapped around his dick. But it wasn't that he was stroking himself that caught me completely off-guard, it was what he clutched to his nose and mouth with his other hand; the pair of my panties that he had discovered on the floor all those weeks ago when I first moved in. Rooted with panic and intrigue, I covered my mouth and watched on from the third-to-last step at the man taking deep breaths of my underwear while he pulled on his cock and massaged his balls. When I heard a faint groan leave his mouth I felt my floodgates crashing open. The tingle I felt budding from my clit grew so strong that my hands went numb and my face turned red-hot. There was no way that Bill hadn't heard me coming in the door and ascending the steps. But if he knew that I was there watching him play with himself, he didn't acknowledge it. He was in his own world of pleasure, getting high off the fumes that I had infused into the fabric of the underwear he was meddling with his fingers. I wanted to watch him shoot his cum from the tip of his cock but I was so scared that he would see me that I cowered back so that if his gaze did travel beyond the walls of his bedroom, perhaps he wouldn't catch me staring. Another long, deep moan left him and the sound of it somehow filled every sense I had. It was as though I could smell what he was smelling, feel how he was feeling and the taste left behind in my mouth was wetted with saliva being over-produced by my own sexual appetite. I pictured him kissing my clit, pushing my legs back and using his tongue to bore into me, letting it run down, down, down so he could taste every inch of me. A gasp nearly escaped me when I saw him push the crotch of my stolen panties into his mouth. His head dropped back into his pillows and his slow, languid strokes of his cock turned erratic. "Fuck!" He emitted after spitting the panties out and dragging them down his body to wrap around the base of his shaft. "Fuck, fuck, fuck... Mmm, my god." After a minute of every muscle in his body flexing, it looked like he was inches away from coming and I leaned forward with my hand out on the last step to balance myself so I could watch the end result. It took a bit longer than I expected but I watched on unblinkingly until he finally managed to pump out an orgasm that ripped through his body and exited him in a glorious spurt of cum. Then there was another spurt and another, all landing in a perfect sticky mess over his stomach and chest. The sun coming in through his window glittered over his spackled body while a dryness hardened my tongue. I gawked as he moved to mop up his own mess with my black lace panties. What he was going to do next was as much a mystery to me as the last ten minutes I had spent as a voyeur. His cock laid over the top of his thigh and shrunk with each passing second while he rolled my panties up into a ball with his fist. All of his muscles relaxed and he sank further into the bed, closed his eyes all the while my stolen cum-soaked panties remained clutched to his chest like a cross. I could almost smell the musk permeating from the open door. Slowly, I descended the stairs one by painstaking one.
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bibhabmishra · 4 years
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The Princess Bride
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It feels downright inconceivableI to devote only one chapter in a book about lessons gleaned from eighties movies to The Princess Bride. Why, just off the top of my head, while standing on my head, I can name five life lessons that this movie teaches you that you don’t learn anywhere else:  1. “Never go against a Sicilian when DEATH is on the line!” 2. “Love is the greatest thing—except for a nice mutton, lettuce, and toma- to sandwich when the mutton is nice and lean.” 3. “Life is pain. Anyone who says differently is selling something.” 4. Eventually, you learn not to mind the kissing parts. 5. And most important, “As you wish” = “I love you.”  Such is the depth of wisdom in this film that in 2013, twenty-six years after its release, BuzzFeed devoted a listII to the lessons gleaned from it. A BuzzFeed list! Who needs the Oscars, Princess Bride, when you have that ultimate of mod- ern-day accolades? The Princess Bride is so adored that it’s probablyIII now a clichéd response on Internet dating websites: walks on the beach, an open fire, sunsets, and The Princess Bride. And yet, despite this, love for The Princess Bride is not seen as desperately hackneyed or cheesily safe. The Princess Bride is what you’d need a prospective love interest to cite as their favorite movie for the relationship to progress,IV it’s the one film that would make you rethink a lifelong friendship if you found out your best friend “just didn’t get it”—not that they would ever say that, because I honestly don’t know a single person of my generation who isn’t obsessed with this film.
And not just my generation: in As You Wish, a very enjoyable book about the making of The Princess Bride, Cary Elwes—who played Westley the farm boy, of course—recounts being told by both Pope John Paul II and Bill Clinton how much they loved the movie, proving that The Princess Bride appeals to saints and sinners alike.V Now, having said all that, I have a confession to make. I was not the big Princess Bride fan in my family when I was growing up. That title instead went to my sister, Nell. Our mother took us to see it at the movie theater when I must have been nine and Nell was seven, and even though the film was— incredibly—something of a commercial disappointment when it came out, the cinema was absolutely packed with kids like us. In my mind, everyone in the audience was utterly in thrall to this tale of Buttercup (Robin Wright), her true love Westley (Elwes), and their battles against Prince Humperdinck (Chris Sarandon), Vizzini (Wallace Shawn), and Count Rugen (Christopher Guest), and their eventual assistance from the brave swordsman Inigo (Mandy Patinkin), the giant Fezzik (the professional wrestler known as André the Giant), and Miracle Max (Billy Crystal). Afterward, we stood in the cinema atrium as our mother bundled us back into our coats. “Did you girls like it?” she asked. Standing there in her corduroy dungarees and T-shirt, Nell looked in a state of semi-shock. “I LOVED IT. I WANT TO SEE IT AGAIN RIGHT NOW!” she practically shouted. Now, The Princess Bride is wonderful, but in order to understand how unex- pected this proclamation was, you have to know a little bit about my sister. Ever since she was old enough to throw a tantrum, my sister refused to wear dresses. She never played with dolls. She refused to let my mother brush her hair and had apparently no interest in her physical appearance. She did not like mushy stories—she didn’t even like reading books. In other words, she was the complete opposite to me. How much of that was a deliberate reaction against me, a younger sibling defining herself in opposition to the older one, and how much of it was simply an innate part of Nell was already a moot point when we went to see The Princess Bride: Nell’s parameters were so firmly set by then that her nickname in our family was “the tough customer.” She would consent to drink only one kind of fruit juice (apple), and buy only one brand (Red Cheek), and only if it came out of a can (never a carton), so there was absolutely no negotiating with her about mushy princesses. Lord only knows how my mother got her to see the movie in the first place. She must have hid- den the title from her. And yet, like the grandson in the film, Kevin Arnold,VI Nell found that, against all odds, she did enjoy the story, just as Kevin’s grandfather, Columbo,VII promises. I think Nell made my mother take her to see the film at the cinema at least three more times. As she wished. When it came out on VHS, we bought it immediately and it was understood that the videocassette was officially Nell’s, just as the videocassette for Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was officially mine. When she found out that the film had originally been a book by William Goldman, who also wrote the screenplay, she asked my amazed mother to buy that, too. Nell read it over and over until the pages fell out, so she stuck them back in and then read the book again. The Princess Bride was the book that taught her to like books, as much as the movie taught her to relax some of her other rules. She developed a lifelong crush on Westley and, not long after, she started wearing dresses, too. The reasons why Nell loved this film so much exemplify, I think, why it is universally adored in a way that, say, the vaguely similar and contemporary The Never-Ending Story is not. It’s a fairy tale for those who love fairy tales, but it’s also a self-aware spoof for those who don’t; it’s an adventure film for boys and—for once—girls, too, but without pandering to or excluding either; it’s got a plot for kids, dialogue for adults, and jokes for everyone; it’s a genre film and a satire of a genre film; it’s a very funny movie in which everybody is playing it straight; it’s smart and sweet and smart about its sweetness, but also sweet about its smarts. Unlike, say, Shrek, there are no jokes here for parents that go over the kids’ heads: all generations enjoy it on exactly the same level. It’s a movie that lets people who don’t like certain things like those things, while at the same time not betraying the original fans. But most of all, The Princess Bride is about one thing in particular: “The Princess Bride is a story about love,” says Cary Elwes. “So much happens in the movie—giants, fencing, kidnapping. But it’s really a film about love.” This might seem like a statement of the obvious, but it isn’t, actually. Yes, the film is ostensibly about the great true love between Buttercup and Westley, and their most perfect kiss that leaves all the other kisses in the world behind. Both Elwes and Wright were so astonishingly beautiful when they made the film that, watching them, it’s hard to believe any love ever existed on this plan- et other than theirs. And they, rather pleasingly, were quite taken with one an- other. In his book, Elwes talks at length about how “smitten” he was with Wright, and she says precisely the same about him: “I was absolutely smitten with Cary. So obviously that helped with our onscreen chemistry. . . . It doesn’t matter how many years go by, I will love Cary forever.” Disappointingly, however, Elwes insists that they remained just friends. “Everyone asks if there was more!” he says, sounding a little exasperated, apparently unable to see what everyone else can: namely, that it seems against the laws of nature for two such beautiful people not to have had sex at least once. The last scene that Elwes shot was of him and Wright kissing on horse- back, creating “the most perfect kiss” of all time against a sunset. Surely that was romantic. “Well, not really. Robin and I were friends by that point so we kept laughing, and [the director] Rob [Reiner] was going, ‘Touch her face, touch her face!’ ” He laughs. But Westley and Buttercup’s love is only a part of the film, and only one of several love stories in the film. There is also, for a start, the great love between Inigo and Fezzik. The scene in which a drunken and broken Inigo looks up into Fezzik’s face in the Thieves Forest and Fezzik says a simple, smiling hello is much more moving than the moment when Buttercup realizes the Dread Pirate Roberts is actually Westley (not least because she’s just pushed him down a hill). Even if Inigo does become the Dread Pirate Roberts at the end of the film, as Westley suggests he should, it is as impossible to imagine him going off without Fezzik as it is to imagine Buttercup and Westley being severed. This love between the two men is at the root of one of the film’s subtlest lessons. Bad guys teach audiences how to think of opponents in life, and this is especially true of bad guys in books and films aimed at kids. Because stories for kids tend to be relatively simple, villains in these films are almost invariably evil, and that’s all there is to be said about them. Cruella de Vil, Snow White’s stepmother, the witch in Rapunzel: WHAT a bunch of moody bitches. This is also certainly true of movies for children in the 1980s, from the frankly terri- fying Judge Doom (Christopher Lloyd) in Who Framed Roger Rabbit to the enjoyably evil Ursula in The Little Mermaid. It’s a pleasingly basic approach, and one that validates most kids’ (and adults’) view of the world: “I am good and anyone who thwarts me is wicked and there is no point in trying to think about things from their point of view because they have no inner life of their own beyond pure evil and a desire to impede me.” The Princess Bride, however, does something different. It’s easy to forget this once you’ve seen the movie and fallen in love with the characters but Inigo and Fezzik are, ostensibly, bad guys. When we first meet them in the movie, they knock our heroine, Buttercup, unconscious and kidnap her for Vizzini. We are also told they will kill her. Our princess! In the eyes of children, you can’t get much more evil than that. They are hired guns in the re- venge business, which is not a job for a good guy in any fairy tale. But Gold- man flips it around. We quickly see Inigo and, in particular, Fezzik being ex- tremely sweet with each other, doing their little rhymes together and trying to protect one another from Vizzini’s ire. Their love for one another shows us there is more to these villains than villainy. Goldman then ups the ante even further by having Inigo describe to the Man in Black how he has devoted his life to avenging the death of his father, thus giving him the kind of emotional backstory kids can definitely understand, as well as adding another mission to the movie. Soon after beating (but not killing) Inigo, the Man in Black fights with Fezzik, who we already know has a similarly sad past (“unemployed—IN GREENLAND”). Plenty of villains were once good before crossing to the dark side: Darth Vader, many of Batman’s nemeses, Voldemort. The point in those stories is that the difference between true evil and true greatness comes down to one wrong decision, one wrong turn, and there is no going back from that. But The Princess Bride does something more subtle: it suggests that good people some- times end up doing bad things, but are still good, have stories of their own, and are capable of love. Inigo and Fezzik both killed people in the past for Vizzini, but they’re all still good people. This is quite a message for kids (and adults) to take in: not everything is clear-cut when it comes to good and bad, even in fairy tales. In the original novel, William Goldman goes into much greater detail about Fezzik and Inigo’s friendship, and this is one of the reasons why I—in all hon- esty—pre-fer the book to the film.VIII But the film alludes to it enough in order for audiences to understand the real bond between the men, and partly this happens through the script and partly through the actors, especially one actor in particular. At one point, Arnold Schwarzenegger was considered for the role of Fezzik, but, thank heavens, he was already too expensive by the time the film finally started shooting. Where Schwarzenegger is all jarring rectangles and jut- ting jaw, André the Giant was all soft circles and goofy smiles. Where Schwarzenegger palpably punished himself to a superhuman extent to get the body he clearly wanted so badly, the man born André René Roussimoff suf- fered from gigantism due to acromegaly and had no choice about his size, just as Fezzik didn’t, much to the latter’s misery (“It’s not my fault being the big- gest and the strongest—I don’t even exercise”). It would be a patronizing cliché to say André was born to play Fezzik, but he was certainly more right for the role than Schwarzenegger. By the time he made The Princess Bride, André was seven feet, four inches and weighed more than 540 pounds. Easily the sweetest stories in Cary Elwes’s book come from the cast and crew’s memories of the wrestler, who died in 1993 at the age of forty-six, and this is not mere sentimentality. Quite a few of The Princess Bride’s cast have, sadly, since died, including Mel Smith, Peter Cook, and Peter Falk, but none of them prompts the same kind of fondness as that felt for André. “It’s safe to say that he was easily the most popular person on the movie,” Elwes writes. “Everyone just loved him.” Partly this is due to the extraordinary nature of the man. Robin Wright re- calls going out to a dinner with him where he ate “four or five entrees, three or four appetizers, a couple of baskets of bread, and then he’s like, I’m ready for seconds. And then desserts. I think he went through a case of wine and he wasn’t even tipsy.” But it was André’s innately gentle nature that made him so beloved. His “compassion and protective nature,” Elwes writes, helped Wallace Shawn over- come his almost paralyzing fear of heights when they were filming the climb up the Cliffs of Insanity. When Robin Wright felt chilly when filming outdoors, André would place one of his huge hands on top of Wright’s head. “She said it was like having a giant hot water bottle up there. It certainly did the trick; he didn’t even mess up her hair that much!” Elwes writes. When he died, William Goldman wrote his obituary in New York magazine. The last lines were as fol- lows: “André once said to Billy Crystal, ‘We do not live long, the big and the small.’ Alas.” Next, on a smaller level, is the love between Miracle Max (Crystal) and his aged wife, Valerie (Carol Kane). Initially they seem simply like a squabbling old couple, playing purely for broad comedy (and their scene is the broadest comedic one in the film). But it soon becomes clear that Valerie is needling Max only because she wants him to get back his confidence in his work after Prince Humperdinck destroyed it by sacking them, and her little cheer when her husband agrees to make a miracle for Inigo is really very touching. By the end of their scene, they’re working together, finishing one another’s sentences, holding each other arm in arm, and whispering little asides to one another. As a portrait of elderly marriage goes, this one is a pretty lovely one. Finally, there’s the great love story that frames the whole movie: the one be- tween the grandson/Kevin Arnold (Fred Savage) and the grandfather/Columbo (Peter Falk). In the beginning of the movie, the grandson is irritated by his cheek-pinching grandfather and can hardly believe that he has to stop playing his adorably primitive-looking computer baseball game to listen to grandfather read a book.IX As the film progresses, the relationship between the grandson and grandfather progresses almost like a traditional love story: the grandson slowly gets more interested, clutching his covers anxiously when Buttercup is almost eaten by the Shrieking Eels; then he gets angry, banging his bed with his fist when it seems like Westley has been killed; and finally, he comes around entirely and tells his grandfather to come back the next day to read the book again. “As you wish.” His grandfather smiles, and the film ends. “That wasn’t actu- ally in the script,” Elwes says. “They came up with him saying that on, I think, the last day, and it really captures the love between the grandfather and grand- son. You can also see the tenderness between Fred Savage and Peter Falk.”
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seromreven · 5 years
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title: blue velvet | chapter three.
pairings: john lennon/male!reader & paul mccartney/reader | various pairings both including and not including the reader.
summary: it’s the turn of the new decade; you’re the leader of a band that has its residency in a popular nightclub in Hamburg. One fateful night you meet The Beatles, a band new in town, and things take a turn as your relationship with two of the members of the band evolves.
author’s note: am still ill so i hope this chapter makes any sense as i’ve proven well enough that my brain completely abandons me when i’m sick
tumblr is a working website and the line i usually put after the read more won’t appear when making this post.
You were in a daze for the rest of the way home. Having been kissed unexpectedly by someone unexpected; you knew not how to feel. It was a nice kiss and you still felt the warmth in your cheeks from it. And while Paul was nice (and quite cute), you felt hesitant in thinking that you had any more feelings than that about him. You had come to value him more than a possible quick lay.
And, quite honestly, you felt more for John, even through the minimal interaction you had had with the guy. But Paul had kissed and in result making you sure that he was into you- into men. That you didn’t know about John and he had already punched you once; you wouldn’t want to risk getting another if it turned out he was the angry kind of a homophobe.
You walked the way to your apartment alone deep in thought; not noticing either John or Paul staring back at you in turns. The air was getting chiller these last few nights and you had yet to fish out your winter coat from the back of your closet; you were still not ready to accept summer having passed. It held your arms snugly around yourself as you neared the apartment.
And when you finally did reach it; you saw Paul waiting for you there as the rest was ascending the stairs.
“I hope I didn’t make a wrong move or anything, like,” he scratched the back of his neck and looked nervously around. You shook your head and shortly glanced around too, “I am… into men. It just came as a... surprise.” You assured him with a small smile and a pat on his shoulder as you both stood out in the cold.
Your abode was pretty neatly placed in the middle of the red light district of Hamburg. All around you were drunkards, people out on the street partying and sex workers as flashing lights from windows and signs hung from buildings filled the air around you. The sound of the low beating hum of music was intertwined with the loud talking and yelling of people around you. Just across the street where a cabaret; a source of great pleasure for the women-loving members of The Eighth Wonder as it was more of a burlesque show than much else.
“It was nice!” You suddenly said, surprising even yourself at your outburst. In your attempt to save the moment; you continued, “and, well, you’re an attractive lad so I can’t really complain,” you joked and was met with a smirking Paul as you removed your hand from his shoulder. Hm, he reminded you of the cat who just ate the canary. Had you done the wrong thing in admitting that? Because he looked like he was planning something.
“Let’s head inside, yeah?” you shook with a, slightly worried, chuckle as the chill was setting firmly into your bones and you much rather wanted to escape the cold and the lack of conversation that was slowly turning awkward.
You slowly ascended the narrow stairway with Paul close behind you. You could practically feel his eyes on you and you slowly regained the warmth from the long way to the top of the building where you had resident that left you flushed.
“Here we are,” you said with a deep sigh as you looked back to Paul with a smile.
The door to the apartment stood open and you could see various people inside move back and forth from conversations and tables filled with beverages and snacks. Your bandmates had really gone all out for the party. It was very rare one was held at your place so excess should have been expected from pals like Charlie and Booker.
Next to the open apartment door stood John; his arms were crossed as he looked at you recover from your journey up the flight of stairs with a raised brow. It usually wasn’t such a tough climb but you chalked this exception up to be due to the hovering presence of Paul behind you.
“...’m fine,” you muttered with a wave of your hand, sharing a short glance of eye contact with John before entering the populated apartment. The short eye contact was enough for you to get warm and you sighed as you looked around. In the time it had taken for you to get here; news about the party had apparently spread. Not only were your bandmates and your new friends here but so were some of your neighbours and random strangers. It also appeared that they had brought their own supplies as alcohol you hadn’t bought was being shared around.
You quickly found George in a corner by himself nursing a beer as guests stood in their own small groups, talking and dancing.
You got to him quickly through the crowd and patted him on the back with a short laugh as you got to him. He jumped slightly as he had been taken by surprise at your sudden appearance. He must have had been deep in thought about one thing or another.
“So, Georgie boy, what’s on your mind?” You asked with a great big smile as you looked at the young boy. While you still didn’t know his age; you held fast in your belief he couldn’t be more than seventeen or eighteen. And as such probably shouldn’t be in this company or with a beer but you were not one to judge. You had been up to far worse things at that age.
“N-nothing,” he stammered with a sudden blush and glanced quickly to his feet. You raised a brow and looked to where his eyes once had stared as if there had been a bushfire. It was a group of the Cabaret women and one, in particular, stood out in a rather scandalizing outfit. You grinned. Even for you; it wasn’t hard to see what had grabbed the young lad’s attention. As much as you wanted to help him talk to her, like what you would see in the movies; you knew it was very well a lost battle. You had seen her around before and the men she ran with weren’t exactly comparable with young George.
“C’mon,” you muttered with a small chuckle and guided him by the shoulder into the empty kitchen. You placed him down a small rickety chair and grabbed a glass of water for yourself and looked down at him from your place, leaned up against the kitchen countertop. “Having a good time?” You asked him, studying him as he looked down at his bottle. From what you had experienced; he was a tad shy but surely he wasn’t new to the party scene as he were in a semi-successful band in the Hamburg scene.
He nodded but told you that he, “just wasn’t in the party mood.”
You understood that feeling very well, having been a victim more than once to Booker’s surprise parties. Charlie only goaded him on while Wolfgang was nowhere to be found. He always turned up eventually after the party had long ended. You never were sure if he were warned or just had the uncanny ability to sense when a party was imminent. This one was no different as you had seen him nowhere in the apartment or on the way to it. It was just like he had vanished into thin air at the pure mention of ‘party’.
You couldn’t very well abandon George to sit by himself, nor force him into a party. He had gone along with the group to it. Out of group pressure, peer pressure, or because he wanted the company; you couldn’t know. But you wanted to stick by him anyhow.
You placed your glass in the sink and sat down at the other side of the table. Fishing around for ideas of conversation was for nought and you landed on asking him where the hell the last member of the band was; Pete Best was his name if you were to have remembered correctly. He shrugged and said something about him leaving before they had even gotten into the apartment lobby.
“Shame,” you muttered but it hadn’t felt genuine. He had made no impression on you whatsoever so you didn’t really care whether or not he had joined the party as it wouldn’t affect you in any major way anyhow. “So,” you were about the ask George something when the kitchen door opened with a quiet creaking and Paul poked his head in.
“Interrupting something?” He asked in his usual charming matter and you couldn’t help but shake your head and invite him in. Even though he had, in fact, interrupted something. He was followed by John who closed the door behind him. The kitchen was getting crowded, you sensed but invited them to take a seat on the remaining two chairs at the table. Paul quickly seated himself next to you and John across from you. Placing you in an interesting predicament as you reflected on your feelings of both of the young men.
You realised the interrupted question fitted in now better than before when it had just been George and decided to go ahead in your attempt to ask; “so, you’re all from Liverpool?”
It was met with nods as they resembled a choir in their synced verbal response to your question. You had guessed as much from their accents but you had heard through the grapevine, so to speak, about them being from around there. “I myself am from Brighton.” You felt a rush of homesick of the mentioning of the name. You hadn’t been there for so terribly long as you had been all wrapped up in business and were unavailable to go on any kind of vacation. “So is Booker and Charlie. We all went to school together too; like you three. Though if you ask Charlie; he’d tell you he’s a Dubliner through and through.”
The night continued in the same way. Telling stories of home and from each of your time in Hamburg. It seemed that The Beatles had been quite busy in the short time they had been in the city as between the three of them they had always collected quite a mass of stories. You had your own little party in the solitude of the kitchen as you sat around the table sharing tales and jokes.
Paul had at one point during the night placed his hand stealthy on your knee and were moving it in soft circles, much to your frustration as it made it increasingly harder to focus on the conversation at hand but he only smirked at the pointed glances you shot him. It was when the hand slowly made it way up your thigh that you should up your seat and with a slight awkward chuckle excused yourself from the room.
Entering the hallway you quickly realised it, fortunately, wasn’t as full as you feared. The little devil that Paul probably was had with his continuingly surprisingly soft hands (Seriously? With how long and often he played the guitar, they shouldn’t be so wonderfully soft) worked wonders in making your pants feel tight and you hurried to the bathroom.
You noticed the time on the way in your escape to the bathroom and saw that it very much nearing early morning. Explained the lack of people but; had you and the boys really been talking for so long?
You sighed deeply as you splashed cold water in your flushed face. Looking at your own reflection in the cracked mirror (Charlie’s fault), you slowly counted to ten as you prepared yourself to get back out there. How had you managed to get in a situation like this? A very attractive man was into you and you weren’t… disinterested but instead your entire attention was still unfocused on a (possibly) straight man. It hardly felt fair to Paul and his perfectly cute round face to partake in any of the very strong hints he was sending your way when all you really could think of his John and his brown eyes and auburn hair and- damn. You coughed slightly, adjusting yourself, and collected yourself together enough to finally step out of the tiny room.
And, well, speak of the devil. Who did you bump into but none other than John? You made a flustered jumble of words in your attempt in apologising as you stared hard into the floor but it was all for nought as he only laughed at it and you quickly stopped with a careful smile as you finally looked at him. God, you really had a silly teenage crush on the man, didn’t you? Funny really; considering how you first met him. You smiled in a way that felt awkward as you stood silently looking at John and his defined jaw. Wait, were you supposed to say something?
“Uh, hi,” you chuckled and looked past him to find that you were alone, though the kitchen door stood wide open and made you wonder if it was close enough for Paul and George to overhear what was going on at this end of the hallway.
He smirked and with a chuckle commented on your apparent visible flushed state of being; “Paul really did a number on you, eh?”
“Wha-” oh. He had noticed that? Shit.
The amused look in his eyes only increased with his forming grin and you cursed at yourself. He looked great like that. With the laugh lines and wrinkles at his eyes. You slowly blinked as you were (probably) staring at him in a tired haze. God, it had been a long and confusing day. All this emotional bullshit was taking a toll on you.
“Your guy… Wolf? Told us to get going so I’m just saying goodbye for the rest of the guys as they’d rather not get on the kraut’s bad side.”
You choked on a laugh and moved towards the door with John at your side; “don’t let him hear you say that.”
“I don’t care,” John said with a great big shit-eating grin and a shrug.
You reached out your hand for a last goodbye shake as you reached the door and waited patiently as John glanced down at it. It was as if something clicked in his head and his grin slowly turned to a smirk and leaned in, ignoring your hand, and placed his lips on yours in a chaste kiss. He had appeared self-assured but through the kiss, it was clear he didn’t truly feel so.
He pulled away with a fierce blush; suddenly looking mighty bashful and muttered “just wanted to see what Paul’s fuss was about” before hurrying out the door and down the stairs. You stood fast in the position he had left you, hand still out for the handshake that never came, in before you lightly shook your head and glanced to the door.
What just happened? Did that just happen?
“What?”
You somehow in your confused haze made it to your bedroom and fell onto it with a heavy thud. God, this day had been strange. Paul very clearly not hiding his feelings. John, who you thought were disinterested, had kissed you. You should be rejoicing! You crush had kissed you! But all you could think about was the peculiarity of his reaction to the kiss. Had he never kissed a man before? Was that the problem? Or just you. Fuck. 
You closed your eyes tightly together as you felt a headache coming on through the mess of your mind.
The next day better be less complicated than this or you’ll… you’ll just have to accept it because, honestly, what else could you do but just go the route your life seemed to be taking?
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Interview with a Magical Girl
What was my childhood like?
I don’t remember much of my childhood. Not due to it being bad or something overtly traumatic, it was just average (Upon discussing stuff with my therapist, I have since learnt this is not true in the slightest.). I was neither particularly skilled academically or physically, though I soon learnt later in life that this was due to how my brain worked. A smart little awkward cookie who just couldn’t handle the pre-packaged Baked Goods that was expected of all younglings. I was bright, devoured what I read and caught my interest, but it didn’t suit what the Adults expected, and thus I was branded an outcast. The interest in cephalopods definitely didn’t help with my peers either, atleast not until my 20s. Eventually the growth hormones kicked in (Fuck being a teenager. Those who miss those days are either incredibly delusional, or they lucked out during their teenage years. Lucky sods.), and changes wracked my form. Some grew interested in the other sex, others were interested in the same but kept quiet about it. Whereas I......just wasn’t interested. There were times when desire would flood my body, but I was lucky that I had read about what hormones could do to me, so I understood what I was feeling would only be temporary. The few who truly did spark something, recoiled from me upon learning so, due to either them having only been faking friendship with my for whatever reason teenagers do so, or preferred us being friends. I was fine with the latter, it was nice knowing how I could interact with them. It was the former that started the process of breaking me, of learning the difference between being a person, and being an object. And it was the loss of all of them at the end of my final high school year that started the cracks in my psyche. I had spent my formative years making myself into someone they all liked, actively avoiding the things that, upon reflection, would define my adult life. The realization I had wasted my formative years on people who had been happy to drop me once they didn’t have to deal with me.............hurt. I had denied myself, and torn myself into the wrong shapes, and it had not been enough for them. I don’t remember the couple of years between High School ending, and starting my stagnant job. I just remember the hate, the rage, the pain and the anguish. Its still there, buried deep. I have long since accepted those parts of me. Those parts of me help when something tries to break me again.
 You may have noticed I haven’t mentioned my family. My mother is a good woman, who has had the world repeatedly try and beat her down and break her. It succeeded, but she refused what it gave her and fought her way back to something resembling normalcy. Atleast, as close as she can manage. My siblings.....I resent them for how they were growing up, but I’ve since come to terms with them and we enjoy a nice peace between us. Not living in the same house helps a lot. We won’t speak of the man who put me in a hospital. He’s lucky my mother and I still, for some unknown and most likely fucking stupid reason, allow him to stay in our lives.
  My stagnant job was just that.....stagnant. I was one of their better employees. But I was neither Good Enough(tm), nor did I perform the needlessly complicated social rituals needed to bypass the Good Enough(tm) necessity required for getting promoted.
 I was secluded, but it helped me start healing. But it stagnated at some point, and I became stuck in a rut, unable to leave.
It wasn’t until my Ikō-ki came that my life truly started.
************ Whats an Ikō-ki, you ask? I’m not sure myself, to be honest. I was alone in my tiny apartment, my own little stagnant marble of reality, when it just appeared with a flickering of the light, a strange dark metallic rod, eldritch tendrils of energy keeping it afloat. The ‘head’ of rod is vaguely bulbous, with 8 undulating bands forming the patterns along its length. Heh, it just occurs to me, but it kind of looks like someone had attached a small octopus to a rod (This is how I knew it was mine.) It called itself an Ikō-ki. The strange mind voice it uses to talk to me is a strange blend of my masculine voice and a Japanese accent I’ve never had, and if it weren’t for the fact I hated how the words sound when they come out of my mouth, I would call it a soothing voice.
They seem to help transition small pools of stagnation, based on the stories it has shown me. My Ikō-ki (I can’t help but claim it as Mine) has shown me multiple stories: a princess become a prince and bring ruin to their prosperous yet corrupt state; a young boy became the Belle of the town and helped reunite the warring clans within falling in love with each of their heirs and tying their futures to one another; an adult who claimed bloody retribution on those who had claimed their body against their will. But those are the Phantasmal stories, the ones meant to bring hope to those who have fallen to despair, to give them the motivation to rise above the masses or to sink deep into their minds and bring forth a new dawn for those who follow their darker paths.
 But that was not meant to be my Story, atleast, that is my hope. I want my story to be a stopover, like the smaller stories of local heroes and vigilantes, of those who guard the dreams and become the nightmare that nightmares fear within the dreamscape, those who sleep the wakeless dream and help heal the minds of their peers, of those whose only job is to look after their Ikō-ki until it comes time for it to move on. I’m getting off track. My mind can’t help but wander when I think about my Ikō-ki.
My Ikō-ki is a strange magical artefact that most likely either originates from Japan, or spent enough time there that it has permanently affected its.....mind? I’m still not sure how its ‘mind’ works. My Ikō-ki definitely has its own mind, since while we share tastes and opinions; it has since developed its own opinions and tastes, which I find fascinating. The small few others we’ve encountered have ranged from nothing more than inanimate magical objects, to semi-autonomous drone-like constructs, to full-fledged sentient beings. They seem to specifically be attracted to women, since I have yet to see any we’ve encountered with a masculine form. But considering they make us physically transform when we use them, I can’t trust what I see, I can only take the words of the strangers who are in similar situations to me. ........did I not mention I can transform? From the sounds of it, My Ikō-ki was surprised at how accepting I was of the concept. I had grown up watching cartoons of girls being able to transform into magical warriors, so this was just my childhood dream coming true.
 My new form.......is too much for my liking. Don’t get me wrong, I love the design of my outfit. The cephalopodan dress is the stuff of eldritch nightmares, all dark blues, greens and browns, endless flowing in non-existent currents, the great red Mantle headpiece towering above me, 4 larges tendrils wrapped together like hair, ready to flare up and be used if needed.. The ammonoid shield stands tall and impassable, its eternal spiral unyielding to any. The strange spraying creature on my right wrist, at time filled with a viscous ink that flows through air as if underwater, yet capable of delivering a highly venomous bite to anyone who isn’t me if they venture to close (This strange symbiote seems to share a link with me, since I’ve recently learnt that, if threatened outside of my magical girl form, my bite can be just as venomous). But as with the strange curves of all cephalopods, my own body becomes much fuller, curves appearing where I typically lacked them. While gorgeous, it’s not my thing. I prefer being on the ‘less filled out’ side of the body spectrum. Though if the only downside to my form is that its curvier than I like, and I get a awesome cephalopod aesthetic as the positive, I’ll take that deal. I’ve seen some of the lingerie others have been saddled with. What do I do with this form?
.......just watch it move and react. Its more cephalopodan than human, and its fascinating watching the eldritch form just.....move. There are times I go exploring the city, and stopping some of the worse crimes if I stumble upon them. But exploring the dreamscape is what I mainly do. Redirecting the mental eddies and currents around me, helping keep their lives just that little bit less miserable. .......I once tried to probe into That Man’s thoughts, to see why he put me into the hospital. I couldn’t handle what I found, and now I fear to dive into anyone else’s mind. If I’m a Magical Girl, who do I fight? Thats a hard question. In theory, The Decline. The literal concept of humanity falling into entropy. But as My Ikō-ki has shown me, The Decline just haven’t been active lately. My Ikō-ki is of the belief that we’ll see a resurgence in the next few years, given the state of the world’s political climate. But at the moment, I’ve mainly been ‘fighting’ other Magical Girls I’ve encountered. Not to the death or anything. Only some of the newer girls try that, due to a rise in darker media. But those of us with experience quickly weeded out those thoughts. At most, We spar and train. As I said, supposedly The Decline is coming, and someone needs to be ready. I’m hoping my shift will be over by then, but it can’t hurt to keep the others who have an active interest in protecting the world on their toes. Also helps keep me fit and in top form, when some of the more ‘morally straight laced’ Girls come and ‘hunt me’.
 Why do I get hunted?
Because I have the Power, yet I don’t do anything obvious with it. Plus, as you can tell from looking at me, they ‘normal’ girls consider me an aberration. I once asked My Ikō-ki if Magical Girls were inherently good. He told me that each magical Girl is different, and we all walk different paths. Most walk the lighter paths, and some are consumed by that light. I walk one of the newer paths. Because it is new-ish, and isn’t inclined towards ‘The Light’, they get it into their heads that theres something wrong with me, and I should be purged to allow my Ikō-ki to pass on. Its not their fault. Society has taught them to fear the alien and the unknown, and one of our baser instincts is to fear what hide in the Dark. But thats why I walk the Darker path. I shall shield those outside of the Dark from their own fears. Luckily, I haven’t had to kill any of them. I almost did once, when I learnt my symbiotic sprayer could bite. The problem with young creatures with venomous bites, is that they don’t know how to regulate their venom. That girl was lucky the Medical Girl was nearby. Five more minutes and her lungs would’ve been paralyzed. *************
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jflashandclash · 5 years
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Traitors of Olympus IV: Fall of the Sun
Forty-Two: Calex
A Boycott on Falling
             All of them acted at once. Euna wrapped a vine around the avatar’s shoulder like something out of Tarzan. She swung down, taking Phobetor off guard and kicking him in the face. Quite an alright sight, if you where to ask Calex.
           Calex jumped off the avatar’s shoulder, holding his breath to see if Thalia followed through on her side of the bargain. It would be right rubbish if he made it through Tartarus and all this madness only to flatten into a Shrove Tuesday pancake.[1]
           Sure enough, as he dove towards the ground, he could see the huntress of Artemis lunging off the other shoulder. She had both her hands outstretched and—
           And her eyes were tightly shut.
           “GRACE!” Calex shouted at her.
           As he said it, a blast of air exploded out of her hands. The gust hit the mashed strawberry field and flooded up toward him. His descent slowed so, by the time he blundered to the mud, he could do a break fall without shattering his body.
           Not exactly graceful, but not dead either.
           Without losing momentum, Calex rolled into a sprint. He fumbled to withdraw his pencil pouch so he could assemble Soul Pain.
           “Did you just do that with your bloody eyes closed?!” Calex couldn’t believe he was using that tone with the Lieutenant of Artemis, but recent events left him a bit more willingness to defend his right to survive long enough to snog Merry.
           “No! Shut up!” Thalia snarled. Her face was paler than he’d seen in their entire trip through two underworlds. “Giant snake. Destruction of camp. Focus!”
           This was almost as angry as he felt when Euna explained her plan to capture Kaos while they were ascending out of Tartarus—the trial their group called The Eternity of Tortuous Stairs: The Nightmare of a Couch Potato. Then, Euna explained that she had intentionally made shorter vines to snap when he and she were falling towards oblivion, to decrease the burden of deceleration towards Kaos’ pit, and conveniently forgot to tell Calex that they were supposed to snap, leading Calex to believe they were in an uncontrolled fumble towards death.
           Now, while Calex dug his trainers into the mud, he grumbled, “Being a demigod: taking life one unnecessary heart attack at a time.”
           Calex didn’t dare look back to see how cat-avatar-Axel and Reyna faired. [2]They had other worries.
           They raced toward the cabins, where the world darkened without the proximity of the Roman field lights. Now that they were beyond the horrified mass of ghosts, he could better see how massive a problem they had there. Despite the darkness, it would be hard to miss the destruction.
           When Calex had seen Python inside of Howe Caverns, he froze up. All he could do was drag his friends to safety when they got knocked out. Then he hadn’t even seen the entirety of Python. However, after saying a quick, “How do you do?” to Kaos, the sight of Python in her whole was much easier to swallow.  
           The drakon’s body was enormous, her diamond shaped head at least twenty feet off the ground. Her serpentine form balanced atop the totaled Apollo cabin, wrapped several times around the central hearth to consume the flames, then crossed the cabins to rest atop of a pile of silver rubble. With the flick of its tail, it smashed through the walls of the Athena and Demeter cabins.
           One of its eyes was swollen shut. The other—
           Calex averted his gaze, remembering something Joey and Pax had discussed right before Joey had stabbed the drakon’s eye like the crazy hero she had been. “Don’t look it in the eye. It’ll—”
           “—paralyze you. Duh,” Thalia said, giving Calex an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu.
           “We can’t let it destroy the rest of Hera’s cabin,” he said. Though he couldn’t see much of the half-wrecked structure, he hoped Joey’s statue was safely standing. If there was any hope of changing her back, he assumed the statue would have to look like a proper Greek statue instead of a post modern one.
           “Hera’s cabin isn’t really high on my to-do list right now,” Thalia snapped.
           “Right,” he said. “Let’s just crush the snake fast.”
           At Python’s tail, he could see several small forms darting around. Miranda Gardener and another one of Euna’s sisters were trying to unsuccessfully restrain the tail with a few vines.
           By the head, they could see a group of Greeks armed with scattered weapons and PJs, all ducked behind a gigantic metal shield where the Hephaestus Cabin once stood.
           The drakon snapped its jaws at the shield, hissing in frustration. Whatever the material was, it was strong enough to hold up against a direct bite, and it was large enough that Python couldn’t get his jaws around it. The drakon either was too thick to think of going around the side of the shield, or the shield was enchanted to confuse it.
           Dead ahead, the sickening greenish glow of the Cloven Terror’s eye sockets bobbed as Alabaster’s figure approached Python, far closer than Calex and Thalia.
           “Mad bloke is going to get himself killed,” Calex muttered after his quick glimpse of the helm. Although he knew how powerful the child of Hecate was after seeing the fight with Phobetor, this fight seemed a bit different in magnitude.
           As Calex finished assembling his bow, Thalia handed him one of her Artemis arrows. They closed in and Calex saw more movement that made his stomach drop.
           It was from the rickety, old cabin at the edge of the original twelve.
           If Calex counted right, there weren’t many of the original cabins left standing on this side. Poseidon’s was still fine, but Ares’ bunker and Apollo’s cabin were in shambles. Next was the shield left in Hephaestus’ place. Last was the Hermes cabin.
           And five figures were sprinting out of it towards the shelter of the Hephaestus shield.
           Calex almost choked.
           Camp Half-Blood’s three youngest campers, Harley, an energetic child of Hephaestus, the daughter of the sea storm goddess, and two tiny Hermes campers were scurrying behind a slightly taller figure. Drew Tanaka ushered them along in proper Auntie Drew fashion.
           “Oh my gods! I know you little thieves and brats can move faster than that!”
           Calex could barely hear her. But, Python definitely had.
           Calex understood the gamble. If Python was making her way down the cabins, the Hermes cabin was next in line for destruction, and they’d put their youngest in there during all the insanity earlier. But could they make the run to the safety of the Hephaestus before—
           Python’s tongue flicked out towards the children and a horrific laugh filled the air. She reared her head back to strike.
           Those children would be helpless.
           “You don’t want to smash us! We’d be icky to get off your scales or pick out of your teeth! We don’t taste good!” Drew shouted. “Harvey farts A LOT.”
           For a disorienting moment, Calex full-heartedly agreed that the running campers were quite nasty and would be difficult to pick out of scales if Calex had scales.
           Python also hesitated.
           Calex shook off the charmspeak enough to aim an arrow and fire.
           Thalia followed half a second later.
           Their arrows clinked against Python’s forehead scales and ricocheted off. Python barely seemed to notice.
           It dove at the four children and daughter of Aphrodite.
           Calex frantically snatched another arrow from Thalia’s quiver, unsure what good it would do. He’d forgotten those scales would be so thick.
           Regardless, he and Thalia took aim.
           The children screamed.
           Something hissed and gleamed through the air, intercepting Python before she could snap her jaws around the campers.
           It thunked into the drakon’s good eye.
           Python shrieked and recoiled.
           The ground rumbled as the drakon withered.
           The children and Drew raced into the shelter of the shield.
           “Nice throw, Kal—” Calex began to reflexively shout, until something glowed green by the drakon’s head and reversed spin towards the Cloven Terror. The monster—the Alabaster kind of monster, not the serpentine one—caught the discus as it went past, spinning with the weapon’s trajectory to decelerate it.
           Horror sank Calex’s stomach to think what could have happened to Kally for Alabaster to have her weapon.
           When Python made another horrific hiss, Calex could see its other eye was now tightly closed.
           “We should get to that shelter. We’re sitting ducks out here if its hide is too thick to pierce with these arrows. Let’s see how we can back them up there,” Thalia said.
  ��        “Right!” Calex agreed.
           They continued to race towards the shelter.
           Calex’s mind raced alongside with ideas.
           When they fought Python last time, Kally had used some kind of solar explosion to ward Python off, and the drakon might have only let them go to fulfill the first part of Eris’ plan. From what he remembered of Annabeth’s monster fighting courses, it took Apollo’s full quiver of arrows to slay Python.
           Currently, the sun was down, Will—one of the most powerful children of Apollo—was probably still dead and nearby Nico’s semi-solid body, Phobetor had killed Kayla, Calex hated to know if there were any Apollo children inside the cabin when it got smashed, and he hadn’t seen Kally since they got here—what? 10-45 seconds ago?
           Had Python been methodically destroying the few campers that could put up a proper resistance?
           For the moment, Python appeared to have forgotten the Hephaestus shield. Its tongue flicked towards the Cloven Terror.  “I smell no demigod here! You have the scent of a monster and not that of the foolish Cyclops welp—”
           A burst of hope spread through Calex’s chest. Cyclops welp? Was Tyson still here somewhere?
           Whatever reason Alabaster had to keep throwing himself into the front of battles, Calex was cheered they could at least use his stupidity as a cover. He and Thalia were close enough to the shield to see several campers frantically motioning them closer.
           “—why do you help defend this camp?” Python demanded of the Cloven Terror.
           Before Calex dove behind the three-feet-thick metal shield, he caught a glimpse of Alabaster doing something he’d never seen Alabaster do: hesitate.
           Somehow, the Cloven Terror looked smaller than usual, though maybe that was due to his proximity to the drakon. Now that Calex had slowed his pace, he saw something else odd. The flare of the green torches along Hecate’s cabin gleamed off something spilling down the Cloven Terror’s back: rosy-gold hair.
           Calex’s stomach knotted to ice.
           That wasn’t Alabaster.
           He skidded behind the metal shield, having too much forward momentum to stop.
           Thalia rolled in half-a-second behind him. Already, the word, “Update,” was out of her mouth.
           Calex might have tripped and fallen over had a giant Hispanic not steadied him. He looked into the dark, scared eyes of Chris Rodriguez, a son of Hermes and friend of Pax’s. Clarisse La Rue lay at his feet, clutching her leg—one bent at an odd angle. For a moment, hope flooded Calex at seeing Austin, a child of Apollo, laying beside Clarisse, but the boy was out cold, the lower half of his body mangled like a building had dropped on it. Calex frowned; it probably had.
           Jake Mason, a child of Hephaestus, was putting aerospace-looking blankets around the shoulders of the four children and Drew. Nyssa and Matthias, two other children of Hephaestus, were stationed at either end of the shield wall. At the center, there was a giant wheel crank—to move the shield wall back and forth, Calex assumed, judging off the massive rollers on the bottom and the circular track on the ground. There was a ladder up the center to a small slit in the shield, where a gigantic stun-gun-thing was positioned.
            Tyson and a child of Ares, whose name Calex couldn’t remember, were positioned by the crank, ready to turn it.
           “Do we change positions now?” Tyson asked.
           “No! He’s talking to the Witchboy. Hold up!” Matthias called.
           Calex didn’t realize the shield itself had been pivoting. That would explain why Python struggled to turn the lot of them into afternoon biscuits—well—nighttime biscuits?  After being underground for what felt like days and exiting into a starless, moonless black sky, Calex could guess the time about as well as he could guess the Queen’s favorite pair of socks.[3]
           “We have to do something! That’s Kally!” Calex said, scrambling for a plan.
           “Were you going to just let him die if it was Alabaster?” Chris asked, looking pale.
           Calex was alarmed by his own, unhesitant response. “Yep.”
           Matthias nervously tapped his fingers together. “Imagine Pax’s whining though.”
           “Matt! Eyes outside!” Nyssa scolded.
           “Yea, shut up,” Thalia said, “Whoever is outside will need our help and we need to know what’s going on.”
           Clarisse growled in agreement. “We’re not sure. I think Clovis is keeping us awake. Phobetor can’t seem to keep all of the campers asleep and puppet people as sleep walkers at the same time.”
           “Clovis is napping now. I heard he’s more powerful when he’s sleeping,” Harvey, the eight-year-old, said quickly, “So he can better take on that nightmare meanie.”
           “Pipsqueak might be right,” Clarisse said, “Last we heard, the Stoll brothers, Will, Nico, Chiron, Sherman, and Pollux were in the Big House’s infirmary by Clovis. We’re not sure where everyone else is. No one was prepared for the sun to go down early.” Her voice quivered with fury. “Stupid, overgrown snake—”
           “The sun only went down a few minutes before you showed up on… um—” Chris hesitated.
           “A glowing, giant Axel,” Thalia said.
           Chris looked even paler. “That’s terrifying.”
           After helping to shove Harvey tighter into his blanket, Drew stumbled over to Calex. He prepared—unwittingly—for her to hit on him despite the circumstances, so was surprised when she clutched his shoulder. Tears rimmed her eyes. “It ate Mitchell.”
           Calex’s mouth went dry. Mitchell was one of his cabin mates, a surprisingly shy son of Aphrodite with a good heart.
           No words surfaced to comfort his crying aunt. His mind threatened to wander to the bodies lined up under tarps in Kakata. He squeezed Drew’s hand, swallowed, then walked alongside Matthias again to peak out and see if Kally was already eaten or if they could grant her any tactical advantage.
           The Cloven Terror was still at a standoff maybe ten meters from Python. The snake’s size seemed impossible next to Kally. Somehow, Python seemed even larger since Calex knew it was her and not Alabaster out there. In the distance by the Roman barracks, a glowing avatar slashed through the ranks of ghosts. Calex didn’t see Phobetor or Euna and only noticed a blur when he tried to focus on the two giants battling outside the boarder.
           “Have you no words?” Python demanded.
           Kally took a step back, one Calex recognized as a first step to winding up her discus. “I am a child of light,” her voice rang two-toned with a deeper one. It started uncertain, but continued with a scary determination. “Here to reap the scythe of the lion’s labors. And I welcome YOU with this embrace!”
           “What trickery is this?!” the drakon demanded. “A child of Apollo—”
           Calex balked as Kally wound up and lobbed her discus at the drakon. That girl had more bollux than an unneutered bulldog.
           “Holy spirit of Ares,” Matthias muttered. “That’s not Ajax’s meep-squeak, not-girlfriend, right?”
           Kally’s discus slammed into Python’s busted eyelid. It hissed in fury, though didn’t look further injured.
           They needed to act now.
           Calex put two fingers to his mouth to make a piercing whistle. The chances were low but he should have been around—
           The drakon snapped downward towards his mate.
           A rainbow blur blasted between the drakon’s open jaws as they crushed into the ground.
           Calex whooped in excitement.  
           “What is that?” Nyssa asked from the other side of the shield.
           “The best damn unicorn you’ll ever set eyes on!” Calex cheered.
           A crimson and black blur galloped to a sudden stop about five meters from their hiding spot. Atop a magnificent stallion with a gold and silver horn sputtering rainbow sparks, Kally sat upright, her helm focused on the incoming green glow that hissed behind Python’s head.
           Her discus spun back towards them and Kally snapped her hand out to catch it.
           Calex thought he heard something crack, but couldn’t be certain when Vinyl took off back towards Python. The drakon had dislodged its jaws from the dirt and flicked its tongue towards Kally.
           Python lunged again.
           The unicorn and rider darted under the giant snake. From its blur, a golden discus spun out again.
           Once again, the hit seemed to only annoy the drakon as it withered in anger.
           “We need to help her find an opening,” Calex said. His eyes flashed around their shield and what they had. “Clarisse, you defeated a drakon before, right?”
           “I electrocuted it from the inside of its eye socket,” she growled. “If you didn’t notice, I don’t have an electric spear.”
           Calex pointed at the giant stun-gun thing mounted at the top of the shield. “It’s broken, innit?”
           Jake frowned. “Python knocked out our backup power and our backup, backup power. We’re working on getting it back online, but we would need a lot of electricity to…”
           Thalia grabbed his shoulder, giving him a grin. “How much electricity is a lot?”
           Jake’s mouth hung open then crooked into a grin.
           “You still need to find a way to pierce the hide,” Clarisse reminded, scowling.
           The hope in Jake’s eyes crushed. “The first time we tried, when Python knocked over Ares’ cabin, the prongs just bounced off.”
           Calex thought it over. After the stunt he pulled with Kaos and climbing all those stairs, his body felt weak and shaky. An image flashed in his mind: the black, metal arrow he’d almost shot Axel and Thalia with. He’d been scared to shoot them. The two dumb blokes were so naturally compatible, the strength it took to force disinterest or dislike had been horrible. But, to enhance some of Python’s utter disgust with Apollo children? An arrow like that would be easy, right? He thought about Thanatos and Kaos and his confidence grew.
            “I can make arrows,” Calex said, “that can piece into anyone’s heart. Even a primordial god’s.”
           Thalia’s face went red with rage, but she nodded to affirm this. Her hand reflexively clutched at her chest, where his golden arrow had struck her.
           Their shield wall rocked when Python smashed into it.
           Vinyl shrieked in pain.
           “That’s cool and all,” Matthias said. He’d abandoned his post by the outside of the shield, hands already fumbling with some wires on the ground. No one needed to direct his siblings. Harvey had already thrown off his shock blanket to help him and Jake and Nyssa scrambled over half a second later. “But, can we attach cables to said arrows?” Matthias asked.
           Calex already had a hand on the ladder to the turret. He gave Thalia a grin as the sparks erupted at her fingertips. “Let’s find out.”
 Hey guys! I’m getting this out before midnight this time XD Still haven’t had a chance to do proper edits on these (I’ll hope to get back to more edits later!) but, I hope you enjoyed regardless!
I’m enjoying Vinyl as a battle unicorn. What do you guys think?
Stay tuned next week for Kally’s chapter: I Get to be Python’s Piñata, where I feel like the writing gets a bit smoother for the ending XD
 Footnotes:
[1] A celebration preceding Ash Wednesday where you consume pancakes.
[2] Mel betanote: “Is she going to ride him into battle? That sounds so wrong but I meant it entirely in the form of battle!!!!”
Jack, “( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)”
[3] Apparently I didn’t think Calex was British enough in this chapter.
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